Wednesday, 8 March 2023

Motions

International Women’s Day

Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Education, Minister for Women) (10:41): I move:

That this house notes that today is International Women’s Day and –

(1) this year marks 100 years since women won the right to stand for election to the Victorian Parliament;

(2) for many years First Nations women did not have the same political rights as other Victorians.

I am very pleased to be able to stand and discuss this motion on such an important day in Victoria, International Women’s Day. Can I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the traditional owners of the land on which I am speaking and acknowledge the incredible leadership and advocacy of Wurundjeri women but also their staunch determination to continue their custodianship of this country in the face of destructive colonisation and patriarchy. In particular I want to acknowledge Wurundjeri women ancestors like Annie Borate, William Barak’s sister, and present leaders of the Djirri Djirri dancers and Sue-Anne Hunter, a commissioner of the Yoorrook Justice Commission. Much of the progress we have made as a society is due to the advocacy and work of Victorian Aboriginal women.

This year we recognise the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to stand for Victorian Parliament, quite a significant day. I am proud today, on International Women’s Day, we are celebrating how far we have come in the Victorian Parliament. Women now make up 48 per cent of parliamentarians across both houses of Parliament, and today in the third term of the Andrews government and after decades of affirmative action and quotas we are proud to have reached an equal gender representation: 54 per cent of the Labor caucus are women and 64 per cent of ministries are held by women in our cabinet.

Since we came to government we have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to improving gender equality in Victoria. Our vision is for a fair, inclusive and equal Victoria for all women. The level and skill of women leadership in our Parliament and Labor caucus has resulted in some extraordinary nation-leading reforms for women in this state and across the country. A massive $9 billion investment over the next decade will see savings for families and support for women to return to the workforce or return to more hours in the workforce through reforms to early education and child care. This initiative will make kinder free for every Victorian family and deliver a new era of universal pre-prep for four-year-olds across the state. Economically, this will deliver up to 13,000-plus extra women back into the workforce over the next decade while boosting the state’s economy by about $4.8 billion each year up until 2032 – extraordinary investment with extraordinary outcomes. We are also providing free pads and tampons to up to 700 public sites, including public hospitals, courts, TAFES, public libraries, train stations and major cultural institutions. We know that these are not luxury products, they are a necessity, and women deserve the dignity of access to these products in public places.

We are also completely changing the way women’s health is treated in our state, creating 20 comprehensive women’s health clinics across Victoria to act as one-stop shops for women needing treatment or advice on issues from contraception to pelvic pain. I thank the Minister for Health for her leadership in this area, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health as well, for their ongoing commitment and work in rolling this out.

It is also why we established a gender responsive budgeting unit to consider the gendered impact of government decisions across the entire budget. We are currently the only jurisdiction that has such a unit out of any state or territory, and the 2022–23 state budget was the first time a gender lens was used on a budget. I am thankful for the leadership of the late Fiona Richardson in championing this and also the implementation of this work by the fantastic former Minister for Women, Gabrielle Williams, the member for Dandenong.

This Victorian government established and has responded to an inquiry into economic equity for Victorian women. It has committed to, as one of the outcomes, a $3 million fund to industries in both manufacturing and energy to help women enter, and most importantly stay in, male-dominated sectors. This is on top of so much work that has come before it to ensure women can participate and excel in non-traditional fields. We already have women in construction and women in transport strategies and the Alice Anderson Fund to support women’s startups. All of them are having a huge effect on breaking down barriers and getting more women into non-traditional, male-dominated industries.

In an Australian first, we will begin work to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements, commonly known as NDAs, in workplace harassment cases in Victoria. They are often misused to silence victim-survivors, protect employers’ reputations, avoid liability and hide serial offending. It is one thing to promote the reporting of sexual harassment, it is another thing to hide it, and we want to make sure that those perpetrators learn from their mistakes, that they are re-educated and taken to task for their actions. I thank the Attorney-General in the other place for all her work in this area.

We have supported women in leadership through funding numerous leadership programs such as the Joan Kirner Emerging Leaders Program and the new women of colour executive leadership program, which has two streams: the private sector and, I am happy to announce, a program specifically for those in the public sector. I am looking forward to seeing the recruitment of some fantastic women into both of those women-of-colour leadership programs. We also have the ECHO First Nations Women’s Leadership Program, a program written by First Nations women for First Nations women, the women’s board leadership program and of course our fantastic Victorian honour roll. Many of these boards, leadership roles and courses will have a focus on First Nations women and multicultural women. We have achieved gender parity on paid government boards, increasing the percentage of women to 55 per cent, which is up from 39 per cent in March 2015.

We have launched the groundbreaking Victorian women’s public art program, which is addressing the under-representation of women and their achievements in public art across Victoria. An investment of $1 million will support six art projects celebrating women’s achievements. I was very pleased to join the Minister for Tourism, Sports and Major Events this morning to unveil a statue, funded in the sports portfolio, of Sharelle McMahon, Victoria’s fantastic international champion netballer who has gold beside her name and many world cups as well. It was awesome to be there to see her statue unveiled in a celebration that was well overdue.

We established the ministerial task force on workplace sexual harassment to develop reforms that will prevent, support and better respond to sexual harassment in Victoria’s workplaces. The government has accepted 12 recommendations in full, two in part and seven in principle, which will lead to long-lasting reforms but, most importantly, put the issues of sexual harassment and sexual abuse in our workplaces fair and square as a health and safety issue in our workplaces with responsibility under WorkCover’s coverage.

We have established Respect Victoria, the family violence prevention agency that is delivering on all 227 recommendations of the royal commission, and the work of Respect Victoria has included the fantastic Respect Women: ‘Call It Out’ (Respect Is) advertising campaign that you may have seen on our TVs and heard on our radios, which encourages Victorians to call out sexual harassment and disrespect to women in family circles, in community and in public places. It is why we have enshrined gender equality in law with the Gender Equality Act 2020, to address issues like the gender pay gap, women’s leadership in the workplace and sexual harassment in the public sector.

We are the only jurisdiction in Australia to have such legislation; gender equality is so front and centre of this government’s work. Through this Gender Equality Act, 300 public sector organisations have been measured and have been put under the microscope around their progress on gender equality within their organisations, and they include our government entities, our government departments, local government and universities. These organisations must also consider not just where they are at on measuring the gender pay gap, women’s leadership and rates and reporting of sexual harassment, these organisations also need to consider an action plan – how they address their gender bias in their own programs, their own services, which they deliver, but most importantly towards their own staff – which will lead to better outcomes for all Victorians. I am so pleased that already the work of the Gender Equality Act has produced around 320 gender equity action plans, which really draws a line in the sand and says that our organisations now have a forward plan that will be checked in on in the next two years to see how progress has been made around women’s equality. This is a first in Australia and something I am extremely proud of – that this government has been so committed to it.

We have also made a lot of reforms in education and very substantial steps forward. One of the public sector organisations that has a gender equity plan is the Department of Education, and as Minister for Women and Minister for Education I take the responsibility to advance gender equality within our own schools workforce very seriously. With around 100,000 staff the Department of Education is the biggest employer in Victoria and almost three-quarters of the education workforce are women. Our teachers, our teachers aides, business managers, building managers and personnel, administration and support services are overwhelmingly women. But we will always keep on working towards gender equality because in our education system men occupy predominantly more high-paying roles such as technical specialists, assistant principals, principals – leadership roles. The Department of Education’s gender equality action plan aims to change that as well as close the gender pay gap.

These two portfolios also come together in the Andrews government’s aspirations for the education that students get in our schools. Since 2016 the Victorian government has invested over $82 million in the Respectful Relationships initiative. Respectful Relationships supports Victorian schools and early childhood settings to model, respect and promote positive attitudes and behaviours, and I can tell you, Deputy Speaker, I have seen it in action at our local schools as I have travelled around the state, from preps right through to year 10s and year 11s. Over 1950 Victorian government, Catholic and independent schools are signed on to the Respectful Relationships whole-of-school approach. This also includes not only engaging our students in Respectful Relationships but providing opportunities for parents and the broader community to have the conversation about respectful relationships and what that means.

Our investment in the education system is also supporting young girls to achieve their aspirations, whether it is through statewide Head Start school-based apprenticeships or access to tech schools or access to STEM education, all through the transformational new One VCE. We are all supporting girls to crack the code – this year’s theme from the UN for International Women’s Day – and to make sure that girls, as they grow into women, reach their full potential. I am proud to be the Minister for Education, knowing that I can fill the shoes of some incredible Labor women who have led this portfolio before me. In particular I want to acknowledge Caroline Hogg, Joan Kirner, Mary Delahunty, Lynne Kosky and Bronwyn Pike.

Whilst we celebrate how far we have come, I also acknowledge that First Nations women have historically not shared the same political rights here in Victoria and across the nation as non-Aboriginal women and to this day still face many barriers to equality. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women across Victoria are leading, growing and nurturing the oldest civilisation on the planet. Aboriginal women are still the matriarchs of their community. We know that the consequences of past colonisation have meant that First Nations girls and women have often had their voices silenced. This includes by the discriminatory use of voting laws to not allow Aboriginal women to vote in Victoria, which were in place likely until 1924 for state Parliament and 1962 for federal Parliament – not that long ago. In the 1950s under the constitutions of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, Aboriginal men had the same rights to vote as other British subjects over the age of 21. The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 specifically denied federal voting rights to every ‘Aboriginal native’ of Australia, Asia, Africa and the islands of the Pacific except New Zealand who at the time of the act did not already have the right to vote in state elections. This did not include Aboriginal men in Victorian state elections, who continued to hold their rights. Aboriginal women continued to not have the right to vote.

In 1908 women were given the right to vote in Victorian elections, although they remained unable to stand for election until this right was won in 1924. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol in federal elections, although enrolment was not compulsory. It was not until some 20 years later, in 1984, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were legislatively and politically equal to other Australians under the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983. This act made enrolling to vote at federal elections compulsory for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Lidia Thorpe was the first Aboriginal woman in the Victorian Parliament, in 2017, and I am very happy to acknowledge Sheena Watt in the other place, a member for Northern Metro, who has done an awesome job in representing Aboriginal Victorians, full stop, but particularly Aboriginal women. We need to elevate and prioritise their voices as they exercise self-determination as their political birthright as Aboriginal women. We know that due to the longstanding protests and advocacy of Aboriginal women, much has been achieved; however, we know there is so much more to be done. The Yoorrook Justice Commission has been tasked with listening to the voices of Aboriginal people and also hearing about the particular impacts that colonisation has had on women through historic policies and ongoing injustices.

Whether it is truth or treaty, Aboriginal women are leading the dedication to ambitious reforms in the lives of Aboriginal communities. The Yoorrook Justice Commission is led by the amazing Professor Eleanor Bourke AM, who is a Wergaia and Wamba Wamba elder. Aunty Eleanor has spent her life dedicated to fighting for political rights for her community, whether it is through the 2005 Wotjobaluk native title case, her work as an academic or her work leading in executive roles across the country and across government. It is because of women like Aunty Eleanor that the rights of Aboriginal women have been won and will continue to be advanced in such a profound way through truth-telling.

Treaty offers the opportunity for Aboriginal women to engage in political levels through the First Peoples’ Assembly in a way that has not occurred since colonisation. The First Peoples’ Assembly provides an opportunity for Aboriginal women to advocate for their communities in a self-determined way to reach outcomes. We have already seen with the creation of the stolen generations redress scheme, the Yoorrook Justice Commission and the Treaty Authority that Aboriginal women are taking up leadership roles at every angle. The assembly is co-chaired by incredible Aboriginal woman Aunty Geraldine Atkinson, a Bangerang and Wirudjeri woman who has worked tirelessly for and with communities, especially in education, over decades and continues deadly work leading the assembly.

These are some of the things this government is doing to make our state more equal for everyone. I look forward in the future to tabling and discussing in this place a new gender equality action plan and strategy for this state that is inclusive, that is intersectional and that targets all age groups because we know women are not a homogenous group. We have very diverse backgrounds. We come with very different values and needs. And we want to make sure that women of all ages are captured and represented in that plan, in that strategy and in the action.

We know there is so much work that still needs to be done, and we are up for the job of doing it, making sure that this state is truly representative and democratic and ensuring that we continue to lead the way in gender equality, diversity and inclusion. We all know you cannot be what you cannot see. We need to ensure the girls of today are empowered to be the women of tomorrow regardless of the colour of their skin, their religious beliefs, their cultural upbringing or their financial situation. It is a future we want to see here in Victoria, a future I think is worth aspiring to.

Can I wish all of the women here in the chamber a happy International Women’s Day and thank you for everything that you have done in representing your communities and women in your communities.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (11:01): Happy International Women’s Day to you, Acting Speaker Addison, as well as to members in the Parliament, particularly all of those women, obviously. I am very pleased to rise to speak on the motion that notes today is of course International Women’s Day and that this year marks 100 years since women won the right to stand for election to the Victorian Parliament. It is quite an achievement. And for many years First Nations women did not have the same political rights as other Victorians. There have always been trailblazing women, and despite that there is still more that we need to do. That is why International Women’s Day still is important on the calendar. Women’s rights have moved so far, but there are still many areas that need to be addressed.

I come from a very strong line of independent women on my mother’s side. My mother and my grandmother ran their own businesses, had their own bank accounts. My parents never had joint bank accounts. I do not have a joint bank account. I am in control of my own finances because I think it is exceptionally important. And when I look at my maternal grandmother, who really paved the way I think for so many people in our family to look up to and to see that this is what you can do, she was in the business of diamonds and buying and selling pubs – I believe she was engaged several times, which I have. She also was involved in hotels for a very long time, and they were traditionally male-dominated.

But I grew up with having the farm, and on the weekends we would all go into the hotel for the weekend, where Mum and her brother ran that business and her mother had previously – and they had pubs all over country Victoria. I saw how hard they worked. I saw how much they respected other women for what they had done and the work that they were achieving, and they did it with just a grain of salt. So I have certainly picked up these traits, as has my daughter, to make sure that we are absolutely independent.

I believe financial independence is so important because I see so many times when women end up in a situation of divorce and they have not had their own money. More often than not now these are people who are older than me, who often did not ever work and would only have had joint bank accounts. We see for this reason homelessness in this sector, people who are really struggling who have not struggled before but they find themselves in absolute hardship. I just cannot stress enough the need for people to make sure as best they can that they have their own money, whether that means squirrelling money aside along the way or not.

There have been some extraordinary contributions in all areas of the workforce and women have forged their way in typically male-dominated environments, and although changes have been made there is still a long way to go. Now, we have had some battles and we have had the suffrage movement to get women to have the vote, and we know today it is 100 years this year since women were able to stand for Parliament. We had situations – it seems not that long ago – that when women got married they had to leave their jobs. I know people that worked for banks and for the public sector, and when they got married they had to leave. I think teaching might have been separate. But this happened and it was not that long ago, because a woman’s place was not in the workplace; a woman’s place was in the home. So we have had those battles.

We had the membership battles for equal rights with the changes to the Equal Opportunity Act. We saw the white line at Flemington, which I had experienced as a young woman – I was not able to cross that line – and in fact I had an experience also with the person I was with at the time when we were at university. He was a member of the Victoria Racing Club, and we went to the races, to one of the big events, and were questioned because we were young and were in the members stand. That was the time. One of the members had questioned why we were there, and there was that white line. Also the Melbourne Cricket Club had to make a lot of changes and convert the ladies cards to guest cards, which you could also convert to women’s memberships, which I was a lucky recipient of.

But this is one of the most important battles that we have had, and I think all of us in this place would agree – I am quoting from an article in the Age from 1925, and the headline is ‘A woman drinking in an open bar? Outrageous!’ Gosh, haven’t we moved! This was very contentious at the time. It was a story in the Age, and we are just short of 98 years from the date of that story. This was the case at the time. In Melbourne the week before the article was published:

… plans for a new hotel in the metropolitan area were submitted to the Licensing Court, and one of the members of the bench drew attention to a room marked “Ladies Parlor.” The court, he said, was decidedly opposed to ladies parlors.

Certainly at the pub that I spent a lot of time in when I was growing up, the Commercial Railway Hotel in Yea, which is now the Peppercorn, there was the ladies lounge, and I do know some of my aunties and their friends would spend time in the ladies lounge. By the time I got to university things had changed a little bit, but I do recall my mother saying to me, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s this new woman in town and she drinks in the front bar.’ Mum was quite outraged at that, and I said, ‘Mum, I go to a lot of pubs in Melbourne and I drink in the front bar.’ She said, ‘Really?’ I said, ‘Yes, and I also drink pots.’ That was a bit of a change for Mum.

Roma Britnell interjected.

Cindy McLEISH: Yes, and now it is pints. Things have certainly moved, but women were not welcome in the pubs. It was okay to run pubs, but you had to be in the ladies lounge, and now we have really moved a long way. These are battles that we have had to have on the way.

There are going to be more battles that we continue to have. I notice with different multicultural groups as they assimilate into Australian society the battles that different generations have, but also with the male–female battles, with the role of the woman in the house. It is difficult for these women in instances of family violence, because they do not have the knowledge that we have grown up with, knowing about being an independent person and being able to stand up for your own rights. So there are lots of battles that are still going to be had.

One of the battles – and the Minister for Women mentioned that as well – which is one of the important battles, is that of the gender pay gap. Australia’s national gender pay gap is 13.3 per cent. That means for every dollar on average that men earn, women earn 87 cents. That is $253.50 less than men each week, and over the course of a year that adds up to $13,182. Victoria’s gender pay gap is actually down from 14.4 per cent to 13.4 per cent, according to the data. What is interesting about the pay gap is that there are a lot of professions where when you go in women’s pay and men’s pay are equal. A job is advertised at a particular level, often, in the public service, or it is advertised at a bandwidth, and surprisingly – and it should not be the case – men go in and negotiate the higher end of that bandwidth, while the women, if they move into that bandwidth, will take the lower end. This is something that we need to be wary of, and we need men to understand that often – and I have seen many examples when I have interviewed people – men blow their own horn a lot better than women. Women are much more reasonable in their belief about what they are capable of. They look at a job description and think, ‘I can do this, I can do that; I’ve done this, I’ve done that. Gosh, I haven’t really got that experience.’ Men go, ‘Oh, yeah. I can still do that.’ Women do not because we look at it with integrity. We have to look at how we do this, how we present ourselves, so that women get further into leadership roles.

On leadership, what happens with many women is they leave the workforce to have children, and that is a great thing. Being a stay-at-home mum is something that I absolutely greatly enjoyed, but it is when you come back into the workforce. Typically if people are only in two or three days, they do not end up in leadership positions. But if they end up in a role four days a week, they are in the mix for that leadership role. If we get more women at four days a week, we can get more women into leadership roles, and this will help break down some of that gender pay gap.

That is not easy, and it is not easy for a number of reasons. A lot of those women need to have child care, and child care is a real issue at the minute, particularly in country Victoria. There are not enough spaces. There are not enough houses. We see women get offered good jobs in country towns and they cannot find anywhere to live, or if they can find somewhere to live, they have not got the child care to support them. It is easy to talk about the gender pay gap, but we have to unpack what is there, what it means, how it is perpetuated and what can be done. I had meetings with Sue Morphet, who would be known to many in this place, and she was very big on the fact that you need these support systems to help women get to that job 3½ to four days a week so they are in contention for leadership roles. That is something that is particularly important. We need men to understand and we need men to acknowledge this and support women. The awareness is so important, but we need them to speak up as well. I cannot tell you how important that is.

The pay gap and women taking time out of the workforce ends up impacting superannuation. A recent KPMG report highlighted that in the years approaching retirement age the gender superannuation gap can be anywhere between 22 and 35 per cent. More and more women are hooked into superannuation now because of its compulsory nature, but the pay gap impacts your superannuation. The median superannuation balance for men aged 60 to 64 years is $204,107, whereas for women in the same age group it is $146,900, a gap of 28 per cent. For the pre-retirement years of 50 to 59 the gender gap there is 33 per cent, and in the peak earning years of 45 to 49 the gap is 35 per cent. Hopefully some of this will filter through, but we really have to address the issues that are holding some of the women back from participating in the workforce but participating so that they can maximise their talents. Individuals with low superannuation balances are more likely to rely on the age pension in retirement, and as at December 2020, 55 per cent of those collecting the full pension were women. When you have a look at that 55, it means 45 per cent of men were not. This is something that we need to be very mindful of as women attack the workforce.

I want to talk about some other areas. Small businesses make up 98 per cent of businesses in Victoria. According to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman between 2019 and 2021, 38 per cent of small businesses in Australia were owned by women, and owning a small business is really difficult and challenging. Not only is your money on the line and you are the one that has to do the bulk of the work, but you may not get the opportunity to put as much into super depending on that business. It is really important that we look at supporting small businesses so that all small businesses thrive and so that women are not forced out of small businesses.

I had a wonderful experience a couple of years ago when I was at a camp at Marysville for children from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular suburbs. There were a number of people from the south-east and from the western suburbs, and I was talking to a couple of young African girls who were in years 11 and 12 about what they wanted to do after school. They talked about going to university, and then one of them said to me, ‘I really want to own my own business.’ I said, ‘Good on you.’ The other one said, ‘I’d like to own my own small business too.’ I thought, ‘This is terrific that we have young women who are happy to go and work towards being able to have their own business.’ Whether they start off in other careers and have a good understanding of finances, whatever that may be, they need to be supported to go into their own business.

Women on boards: female roles continue to grow across companies, with women now representing 35.7 per cent of positions on ASX 200 boards, and that is up from 29.7 per cent in 2019. So the message is getting through that we need to have this diversity, because women have a different way of looking at things than men and you need to get that diversity, not just of backgrounds and experiences but of gender – it is an important thing to have on boards. Many organisations already have equal women on boards. I am a director of Golf Victoria and we have equal representation of men and women and equal representation from country and metropolitan areas, which works really quite well, and a number of the women on the board are very happy to be outspoken and have their views heard.

Sadly though, I think, Australian women only hold 15 per cent of chair positions, so males hold 85 per cent. And women hold just 6 per cent of CEO roles in the ASX 200. We have had some amazing leaders in business over the years. We have had Gail Kelly as CEO of Westpac. I remember hearing her talk. She was talking about the challenges of her role and being a working mum. At that stage her triplets were three, and everyone thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, you have an incredible job in South Africa with one of the credit card companies, and you had triplets.’ And she had them all at different schools so they could all have their own identity. She did say that one time she was having a phone conference and she got to work and pulled into the driveway and one of the kids said, ‘Mum, you forgot about me’, and she had to turn around and take that child to school. We have Katie Lahey and we have got Sue Morphet, who I mentioned earlier and who was with Pacific Brands way back. We have quite a number of really talented women – we have a female Lord Mayor of Melbourne at the moment – but there is obviously still more to do in that C-suite.

I want to turn to STEM, because the theme of International Women’s Day is ‘Cracking the code’, which is about bold, transformative ideas, inclusive technologies and accessible education and recognising the role it can play in combating discrimination and marginalisation of women globally. Innovation is a driver of change, and by embracing new technologies and championing the unique skills and knowledge of women in science, technology, mathematics and engineering, which is STEM – and I am very pleased that it does not have an ‘A’ in it, because I am a very strong believer that STEM is STEM and we do not need arts in there, because this is about making sure that science gets its run forward, because it has had the issues – we want to then use that to accelerate progress towards a gender-equal future. This is really important.

One of my absolute heroes in life is Katherine Johnson – you may know of her – the American mathematician who had a wonderful career at NASA and was involved at the highest level with her calculations and what she could do. Not only was she a woman working at NASA in that time, but she was a woman of colour. There were not even toilets close to where she worked. She broke down incredible barriers and she I think is just the most inspiring woman that I know of.

Women currently make up 36 per cent of enrolments in university STEM courses. I know certainly when I was at university there was only one female in the engineering course, and now 11.2 per cent of engineers working in Australia are women. I know quite a number of engineers – all of them are hockey players, as it just happens to be – and certainly the number of women enrolling in university STEM courses has increased by 24 per cent between 2015 and 2020. They make up 27 percent of the workforce across all STEM industries, but just 23 percent of senior management and 8 per cent of CEOs in STEM-qualified industries are women.

This is something again that we really need to do further work on here, and on average women still earn 18 per cent less than men across all STEM industries. I go to so many speech nights, and I see the girls that are among the high achievers. We need to make sure that they have the opportunities to go to university and to work in male-dominated areas if they choose, and I think that is really important.

We have a lot of women in construction. I went to the National Association of Women in Construction awards a couple of weeks ago, and they want to achieve the goal of 25 per cent participation in construction by 2025. At the moment, according to the ABS stats from 2022, 13 per cent of the construction industry are female; 11 per cent, though, are in managerial or professional services and administration, with only 2 per cent in the trades. I know women have a choice. They can do this or not. But we need to make sure that those opportunities are open for them. Not only do those opportunities need to be open but the workplaces need to be comfortable for them. We do not have to have 50 per cent of women working in a mine, but if they are there they should have more than just female-friendly toilets. We want to make sure that that environment is welcoming so if they want to participate in those areas they can participate in those areas. In 2022 a survey by the National Association of Women in Construction found that 81 per cent of participants strongly agreed or agreed that the role of women in construction was changing for the better and 73 per cent strongly agreed or agreed that they felt respected and valued as much as their colleagues. So 73 per cent is not bad, but it is not great, because they need to be respected and valued by all their colleagues. There is still work to do there. It was exciting at that awards lunch to see some of the work that people had been doing. We know Susan Alberti, who is well known to many of us, took over the running of a construction company at a young age when her husband died and she was left with, ‘What will I do now?’ That is really an amazing story.

We have had some wonderful leaders of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, and I want to mention just a couple that have been very active in my area. Aunty Dot Peters, the late Aunty Dot, was a remarkable woman, and she certainly fought for equality for women in her area, being a strong matriarch, but also to have any Aboriginal person who went to war officially acknowledged. Before 2006 that was not the case, and I know Andrew, her son, is doing quite a lot of work now to help that out. Lois Peeler at Worawa college – I know that the 59th Parliament actually went out to Worawa to see some of the work that is being done and to have a program working with them. Aunty Lois is a fabulous role model, and she has done some terrific things with the girls that are at this boarding school in Healesville. A lot of people do not know that there is an Aboriginal boarding school in Healesville. The majority of the girls there have come from around the country, and all of them have had some sort of mental or physical trauma. They have seen things that we would never have seen, and one of the key aims for those girls is to go back to their mobs, to the towns where they had grown up, to show what can be achieved by women and to try and change and influence some of the behaviours there. Not all of them like to do that, because for some of them Worawa is the safest place they have ever been, which is a worry in itself. But Lois is doing a terrific job there.

We have lots of the Taungurung – the Moates and the Franklins are really quite active as well – and the Wandins and the Wurundjeri. There is a lot of work that is being done with Aboriginal culture, trying to make sure that it continues to live and thrive so the young women and even young men in those areas have great opportunities and are not disadvantaged, because we know that the gap in those areas on those measures is well off being closed.

In my own electorate I have a number of very influential and successful women. Three of the four CEOs of the local government areas in my electorate are women: Livia Bonazzi at Murrindindi shire, Tammi Rose at Yarra Ranges and Kirsten Alexander, not so recently appointed, at Mansfield. These are all very capable and talented women, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with them, because not only do I enjoy their company but I enjoy what they have to offer and how they have met the challenges that they have in their areas, particularly in Murrindindi and Mansfield, which are small local government areas and are really behind the eight ball.

We have got some remarkable businesswomen. In Mansfield, Ros Ritchie from Ros Ritchie Wines is a great leader. Gill Belle is the co-owner of the Mansfield Regional Produce Store with her husband Dean. They also have the Delatite Hotel, but they get into all sorts of community activities and run very successful businesses. Then we have got somebody like Alli Walker, who is the founder and owner-operator of the Mansfield Farmers Market and Walker Events. Alli is always having a crack at something to make Mansfield a better place.

In Murrindindi someone similar is Sam Hicks, who was instrumental in driving the development of the indoor heated swimming pool, a pop-up pool, and she did a great job. It is really difficult at the moment because they cannot get swim teachers, and it is really impacting on the work that they can do. She was heavily involved in the renewal of Fawcett Hall. She has been Murrindindi Citizen of the Year. She is an absolute mover and shaker.

Young Emily Noonan has been founder and owner of Soapie Goatie since 2012. Emily is young. She started that when she was 12. Emily goes to all the markets to sell her produce. That is not too dissimilar to Orianna Edmonds, who is the founder and CEO of Naturally Goat in St Andrews. She also has a goat soap and goat products business. Orianna started the business at St Andrews in Nillumbik when she was 15, and it is now in its eighth year. There are some remarkable young women doing some remarkable things.

I had a look in the Yarra Ranges. Maureen Halit and Kate Baselier have been instrumental with the Millgrove Residents Action Group, making that community better for such a long time. I look at the hours that Maureen and Kate put in, and Maureen for such a long time ran the newsagency in Millgrove and on top of the newsagency she had her own business. She was working really hard to make the community a better place. She ropes everybody into Clean Up Australia activities. She retired from the newsagency, and she is now helping her son-in-law run his accounting business because he cannot get workers. Maureen is trying to retire, but she just cannot help herself because she is so active in the community and is just such a remarkable and wonderful person.

There were some terrific women I had the opportunity of meeting last night through the Multicultural Alliance of Women against Family Violence. They are a relatively new organisation, but there are women there who work behind the scenes with their diverse communities, who really want to protect the women who are victims and survivors of family violence and to know what to do and how to do it. They are really trying to make a difference, because we know there is too much violence perpetrated against women. There is violence against men, but the vast majority is perpetrated against women, and this needs to change. It is the responsibility of all of us to speak up when we see different types of violence. In migrant communities it is harder for them, when they have come from quite a different culture, to understand and to learn what opportunities there are. Their children as they grow up will be finding things completely different.

Finally, I just do want to give a plug to some of the amazing sportswomen that we have in Australia. Sam Kerr is just remarkable. If she is not on every young Indian athlete’s bedroom wall as a role model for that community, I would just be so surprised. She has been remarkable for Australia – she is from WA – but also now with what she is doing at Chelsea, and I look forward to seeing her play back here shortly. Meg Lanning, Melbourne born and bred, captain of the Australian cricket team, has just signed another three-year deal with the Stars. Meg has been remarkable. At school she broke that barrier of being in the First XI cricket team at Carey. That is a pretty remarkable thing to do, and she had the backbone and the technique and the backing of everybody. Meg has been truly remarkable.

Jamie Kah – what an amazing jockey; Ash Barty. Trailblazers I have mentioned before like Judy Dalton, who was one of the nine women along with Billie Jean King and the Australian Kerry Melville Reid in breaking away from the tour of tennis to create what we have now as the women’s tour. Sheila Laxon, one of my former constituents, formerly of Seymour, is a 2001 Melbourne Cup winner as the trainer of Ethereal. She was remarkable. We have had Gai Waterhouse breaking barriers there for years and also Michelle Payne. There are so many wonderful people that are representing Australia in sports and doing such a great job. Annabel Sutherland – I think everybody should be watching out for her as a young cricketer. She is doing pretty well with the bat and the ball, and Annabel is really consolidating herself at a young age within the national team. I wish Annabel the best. I am certainly watching her career. She is not quite my favourite cricketer yet. She has got a bit to knock off Beth Mooney, but she is certainly on the way to doing so.

With that, I wish everybody a happy International Women’s Day, noting that we have got a lot to celebrate and we have made a lot of progress but there is still lots that we need to do, and men need to be listening and supporting.

Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Medical Research) (11:31): It is a pleasure to rise on this International Women’s Day to talk about the issues that still confront women here in our state. I have been listening to the member for Eildon and I am reflecting on this debate and how it will underline some of the key ideological differences between the Liberal Party and ourselves when it comes to issues related to feminism, because while I celebrate the achievements of individual women also, including the many that were named by the member for Eildon, I understand that the issues that women face in our nation are as a result of structural inequalities, and we need to actually work to change the system so that it can support women whatever their background to achieve their life’s ambitions and goals. It is only when we think collectively that we can do that.

I had the great pleasure of starting the morning out at Northern Health with the member for Northcote, the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health. Northern hospital serves one of the most multicultural and diverse communities in our state, and it was great to be at a breakfast with many of the workers from that health service. We were talking to two midwives who, with a very small grant, are working to co-design abortion care services for women from multicultural backgrounds. Now this is what International Women’s Day is about: International Women’s Day is about ensuring that basic health care is available for women whatever their background and of course understanding also that women have very different experiences and backgrounds and that we need to respect those and ensure that the health care services that are being delivered to women are done so in a way that is culturally safe, especially when it comes to sexual and reproductive healthcare choices.

Our government unashamedly supports the rights of women to access sexual and reproductive health care, including both medical termination of pregnancy and surgical termination of pregnancy. Our government is unequivocal on this matter, and on International Women’s Day I want to make that point that the same cannot be said for those on the other side of the house.

One of the things about International Women’s Day this year is that we are recognising 100 years since women were first able to be elected to this house. But let us make sure we understand the caveats there, because this is not all women, this is not universal suffrage. Aboriginal women were and continue to be treated quite differently in our community, and we as a government remain committed to giving voice to Aboriginal women. We remain committed to justice, to truth and to treaty. And we know that when it comes to the health outcomes for Aboriginal women, we know when it comes to representation outcomes for Aboriginal women, there is still so much more to do.

We do celebrate, on our side of politics, the fact that 54 per cent of our caucus are now women and that 64 per cent of our cabinet are now women. Now, I do not care about those figures other than what they deliver; that is what is important. I am not interested in women being in Parliament for their own sake. What I am interested in is women coming to this house with purpose, and that is what women on this side of the house do. We come to this place with purpose, and we are able to deliver for the girls and women of this state in areas that are nation leading.

We went to the election with a health package that addressed the real needs of girls and women across their life course. Last term we made pads and tampons freely accessible in schools, working to decrease period stigma. We have committed to expanding sexual and reproductive health clinics right across Victoria. We have already got 11 open, seven of those in rural and regional Victoria, with nine more to come. We are going to establish 20 women’s health clinics right across Victoria because for too long the issues and health concerns that women have have not been taken seriously, be that period or pelvic pain, the pain of endometriosis and the treatment for endometriosis or access to long-acting reversible contraception – it has just not been available. Access to termination of pregnancy is not as freely available as it should be, and as Minister for Health I stand in this place proud to declare that I will do more to make sure that women have access and choice and control of their own bodies.

And of course menopause – you would not have heard menopause mentioned in this place, possibly not even until today, I do not know. But let me tell you, I have just come off a morning tea with my constituents, a virtual morning tea with women in my electorate, talking about the issues that matter to them and the fact that the symptoms of menopause can be quite debilitating and it is very difficult to access appropriate care and support. What we have to do and where we have to work together is to ensure that we normalise women’s health concerns so that women can shed themselves of the shame that still attaches to our bodies.

I want also to talk about our commitment to establishing a women’s health research institute. Why is this so important? Because of menstruation, because of our fertility, our bodies have been seen as too changeable to be reliable subjects for research, for the building of a body of evidence. Because of our menstrual cycles we have been seen as other, and men have been the ones who get the drugs tested on them, the ones who are researched and so on. As more research is done, as more women enter the fields of medical research with a real interest in understanding our bodies better, what we are discovering is that there are many common diseases where women will present with quite different symptoms. Women are not able to access the care that they need and deserve because our healthcare system does not have the knowledge to be able to deliver that care and service.

I want to make another point, if I may. The Liberals like to talk about how Lady Millie Peacock was the first woman elected to this house. Let me just make the point that she came in on a by-election after her husband, who held the seat for 40-odd years, died. She gave one speech, and she said that Parliament was no place for a woman. I mentioned this in my inaugural speech, and this has been reflecting on inaugural speeches, but I talked about Fanny Brownbill, who was the first woman Labor member elected into this place, and she came with a purpose. She knew why she wanted to get into Parliament. Let me tell you why she wanted to get into Parliament – because prams were not allowed on public transport, and that meant that women were chained to their homes. She came in because she was sick of not being listened to by the men that ran our public transport system. She came in with purpose.

I want to celebrate my sisters in this place who come here with purpose. We are change makers. We recognise the structural inequalities that exist not just in health care but in the jobs market, where we have worked to ensure that women are getting more and better opportunities to get secure and high-paying jobs. We understand that we have one of the most gendered workforces in the world, and we want to ensure that women and girls grow up in an environment where they have that choice and it is not a choice constrained by stereotypes.

So there is very serious work to be done, but only this government will deliver. I am very proud of our comprehensive women’s health package, and I want to give those on the other side a challenge: stand up for women’s right to choose – access to termination of pregnancy when and where they need it.

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (11:41): It is with great pride that I rise today to speak on International Women’s Day as a member of the National Party, the parliamentary party in this building with the highest percentage of women in its ranks, a feat achieved without quotas –

A member interjected.

Annabelle CLEELAND: Let us not talk women down on International Women’s Day – without parachuting anyone into seats, purely through the votes of our grassroots members and on the merits of strong regional women who seek to come to this place to make a difference for their communities.

Our party has not only significantly grown since the last election, we have also added some fierce and determined women who I am lucky to call friends: the member for Shepparton, the member for Mildura and our new member for Northern Victoria in the other place Gaelle Broad. Alongside the current member for Lowan and Deputy Leader of the Nationals and our amazing member for Eastern Victoria in the other place Melina Bath, these inspiring women make up the majority of our party. The Victorian division of the federal National Party also boasts a 50–50 female–male composition through the member for Mallee and another female National in a leadership position, Bridget McKenzie, the leader of the Nationals in the Senate.

What is most significant to me is not just that the National Party is so representative of Victoria in terms of gender composition; more importantly the women in our party have experience in such a diverse range of careers. The six women in our party room have backgrounds in agriculture, health care, finance, journalism, local government, private sector business, education and politics. These are women who came to this place with fresh perspectives and new ideas from the community, for the community – life experience that is gained not through a lifetime of union or political work but through a lifetime of community advocacy and strong connections to the people who call their electorates home.

Our party has had a female voice in the deputy leadership since 2014. I note the member for Eildon and Louise Asher, a previous member for Brighton, both served in leadership roles within the Liberal Party for a significant period of the 21st century. I also congratulate the member for Bendigo East on the other side of the chamber, who as a regional MP and a minister is no doubt incredibly busy, without the added work of the deputy leadership of the Labor Party. It was pleasing to see the Labor Party last year finally appoint a woman to the deputy leadership after nearly 30 years of absence.

On this day it would be remiss of me not to mention the incredible contribution of my predecessor Steph Ryan. Steph served as Deputy Leader of the Nationals for eight years and was a passionate advocate for our region. There is no doubt I would not be standing here in this chamber without her example, her support and the incredible pathway she has forged for so many regional women. She is my friend, mentor and inspiration and someone who contributed so much to public life, the National Party and the people of Euroa. I know I speak for my colleagues when I say we have all learned so much from her and wish her all the very best in her life outside of politics.

Right across the electorate of Euroa we have passionate women showing the way and leading by example, from mayors in Mitchell, Strathbogie and Benalla to local health service CEOs to incredible principals. For people in our region there are a multitude of female roles that embody the very best of regional Victoria. In the recent Australia Day awards we saw people like Anne Douglas recognised as the Strathbogie Citizen of the Year for her tireless work in the Avenel community and Denni Bathman recognised as Greater Shepparton Young Citizen of the Year, a young lady with an incredibly bright future and a passion for serving the Murchison community. Regional Victoria is not a place where people are judged by their characteristics. Rather, they are judged on merit and by their capabilities. We are seeing women right across our region forging new pathways, and I know across Euroa the phrase that ‘You can’t be it if you can’t see it’ is falling away, with so many female leaders across every sector.

For me personally I am grateful every day for the women in my life. My mum, who gives her love unconditionally and calls us multiple times a day, has been the matriarch of our family and raised a posse of daughters with various passions and interests. My sisters Alex, Prudence and Clementine – four sisters in the one household is not the easiest proposition and it certainly came with challenges. What a privilege to be inspired by three strong, independent women determined to make a positive difference in this world, all the while raising 10 children between us. You have all forged your own paths and I love you all. Also a special shout-out to my dad, who attempted to have a son four times before he resolved that his role in this life was to be a girl dad, and he is an original feminist. To my beautiful, untameable, adventure-seeking daughter Quinn, you beat your own drum and make everyone around you dance to your rhythm. You are strong, capable and beautiful inside and out. Today and every day I want you to know how much I love and adore you.

I stand here today in this place knowing regional MPs face an extra burden. This is something we know to be true. The incredible levels of travel and time away from home simply cannot be understood by our city counterparts. Disappointingly, unlike our federal Parliament there are no childcare options available for Victorian parliamentarians. This places incredible strain on working parents and in particular the regional mothers in this place. We should not have to make a decision between representing our communities and being apart from our children every second week. We should not have to choose between this role and being a mother. I urge the Parliament to consider the needs of regional MPs and create an environment in which we can contribute to debates with passion while maintaining the important regularity of family life. While this place may not always have been the most accessible, modern and inclusive environment in previous generations, we are in a new era with women representing such large areas of the state. I thank the Leader of the Nationals for his hard work in supporting female representation in the National Party and the wonderful, kind, caring and selfless men who now compose the minority of the National Party.

While today is a great day to acknowledge the contributions of women across the world and in public service in this place, I hope I speak on behalf of all women here when I say that we are not here because of our gender. We are here because we have a burning passion for the people we come here to represent and we have proven we are the right people to be in this position. Our success as a Parliament will not be defined by the gender composition of these chambers but by the way in which we make our regions and our state a better place to live. I am not here as a woman; I am here to represent my community and fight for change. I am proud to do so in a modern National Party, and I look forward to doing so alongside the powerful women of regional Victoria. To all the women here in this place and across the entire state: happy International Women’s Day.

Natalie SULEYMAN (St Albans – Minister for Veterans, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Youth) (11:49): Happy International Women’s Day to all my female colleagues in the house. So far we have heard some pretty important contributions from the Minister for Health and the Minister for Women. I am extremely proud to be part of a government where we know that Victoria is leading the nation when it comes to gender equality, to be part of government where 64 per cent of cabinet are women and 54 per cent of our Labor caucus are women – strong women and those who really advocate for and support their local communities. We are very much committed to improving outcomes for women from all walks of life. Our government has a bold agenda when it comes to women’s health and we are leading the nation on this.

We have invested $600 million to increase access to specific women’s health services in Victoria. In my electorate we built the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital, the home of the first neonatal intensive care unit in the west. We are making sure that women receive the best care closer to home, not only when it comes to our hospitals but also we have built the women’s prevention and recovery centre, which was opened to women and families in my electorate just last year and provides access to mental health support and care for women from diverse backgrounds in the west. In my electorate we will be building a brand new women’s health clinic at Sunshine Hospital, which I am really looking forward to, and this is part of our $120 million commitment for women’s health clinics. This really is a game changer for Victoria, making sure that we have these health clinics spread across Victoria to help women at all stages of life to access vital health care.

When it comes to supporting women in small business, as the Minister for Small Business on International Women’s Day I am pleased to celebrate women-led small businesses across Victoria. As I said previously, there are over 720,000 small businesses, and 38 per cent of small business owners are women. We have numerous programs that support small businesses and in particular women owners through our Ready for Growth program, which has supported close to 130 women owned and operated businesses to access new markets and grow and create those job opportunities. We are also providing the Partners in Wellbeing program, which has given 1500 women across Victoria, and also their staff, access to wellbeing coaches, financial counsellors and business advisers.

As many people know, I am the first female Muslim MP to be elected to Parliament, and I wonder 100 years ago what eyebrows would have been raised. But I am really proud of that, and I hope that I am paving the way for many to follow. I was advised at a veterans round table last Friday that I am also the first woman Minister for Veterans for this state. I am extremely proud of that too and look forward to the work that we do in that space.

What I am really passionate about – and it is something that our government announced last year – is our $3 million investment to help stamp out discrimination and racism in Victoria. We know what this is about. We know that this is really targeting and supporting our multicultural and multifaith communities. Whether your surname might be perceived differently to others, whether you wear a hijab, whether you are a woman of faith or colour or whether you come from a non-English-speaking background or multicultural background really should not matter. We want to make sure that all opportunities are available and, most importantly, that these sorts of incidents are heard and considered and we take the appropriate steps to stamp them out.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the amazing and awesome women in my local community who do a fantastic job every single day. They go over and above in support, whether it is our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, nieces or friends. I want to make a special shout-out to my own mum. I am absolutely blessed. She has been my absolute inspiration. She is strong, passionate and caring, arriving in this country with nothing more than a suitcase, with no English, and making her way through. The support that she has given me and my siblings has been – I just do not know what I would do without the support of my mother.

I would like to acknowledge Lidija Nezovski, Cr Cúc Lam, Candan Ahmet, Ravneet Mundi, Beata Calleri, Elizabeth Dziedzic, Josephine Cassar, Maria Formosa, Emine Orhan, Sanela Makki and so many other women leaders across the west who are doing a tremendous job supporting one another in their own forums and in their own space. Whether it is through connecting, networking or actually accessing information – crucial information as well – in their forums, they are able to really support other women in their communities, and most of them come from a non-English-speaking background. I do want to make the point that I have heard the statement ‘Multiculturals don’t know what they want.’ They actually do know what they want. Multicultural communities, non-English-speaking background communities, actually do know what they want. But it is about prioritising, it is about opportunity and it is about accessing those opportunities, and most times it is very difficult and challenging. I believe there is still much more work to be done, and no matter what setting you are in, we need to advocate for women. I have got to say, sometimes I have had some very strong men that have supported me in my journey – and I want to thank men that support women throughout their journey – and they have been really integral for me and my journey to this place and of course my 20 years in the public sphere.

I think, as I said, we need to continue on supporting women, particularly young girls. Kids need our support. They need to know that they can smash the ceiling; they need to know that they can reach the stars and dream big. And I do want to say this on the record: you do need to wrap yourself around people who support you along your journey. When it is up and down you need to be patient and determined. And really importantly, do not take no in whatever space you are in. Whether it is a school or a workplace – in whatever setting – never take no as an answer. Do not allow yourself to be put down by others and continue to be determined, because your path will be one that, in Victoria, has opportunities that are so great.

I hope that I have made the path easier for my own niece and for all the many young girls and women that will come after me knowing that we have achieved this and that they can achieve this as well, whether it is in the boardrooms or whether it is at executive or corporate levels or at any levels of government. Be patient, work hard and be strong. I know that dreaming big, you can actually achieve it. There will be many others that follow through, and there is so much more that needs to be done. Acknowledging the contribution of women across this chamber today, I want to thank women that are not mentioned in this place from the north-west, south-east, regional and across Victoria for all the work that you do. Happy International Women’s Day, and may we continue to see many others follow our footsteps.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:58): Today I rise on International Women’s Day, and I want to begin by acknowledging the important work that women do right around the state of Victoria and right around the world. I find this day an opportunity to celebrate our whole community, to thank the women who have done so much before me and to thank the men who have supported the women and who acknowledge and understand the importance of a society that we work towards, where equality is what we are actually striving for. I am a woman who believes in equality. I feel equal – I am equal to everyone – but I am different, and that is what I think we should always celebrate, the fact that I am a woman and I am different to the men but we are equal. That is how I have always seen it, and that is how I would portray it to my young daughter and to young women, who I hope I can be a role model for, because standing in this place 100 years after women were given the opportunity, as rightfully we should have been, to stand in this place is a significant achievement.

I want to pay tribute to all the women of South-West Coast – women and all community members in fact who contribute so much to what makes our part of the world so good. Teachers like Clare Monk, who I meet with at West Warrnambool, or Jo Shelton, a principal from Portland, or Mandy Jones, the Woolsthorpe principal – where my children were educated – right across our region are making the places in South-West Coast better places to educate our children.

I want to acknowledge the businesswomen like Angie Paspaliaris, who is a dentist and a business owner and a local government representative. Women like Angie are taking our community on – and she is young and has not long started her family. You know, that is something I think we should always acknowledge. It is difficult. You do find it harder when you have got children, especially when they are young.

There are women like Jodi Fry, a business owner herself in the transport industry and a journalist, keeping the voice of regional Victoria alive. She is a very outspoken and brave woman. Britt England is a tireless volunteer for the Portland hockey community so that the kids in Portland can actually participate in hockey and have venues to play on. Women like that have put so much in to make sure children right across the region have access to games like hockey.

Wendy McFarlane is a young woman I met last week at the Heywood Pony Club who is working so hard to make sure that they have a place they can call home as a club and putting herself at the forefront and organising – along with her committee, I am sure – and being a spokeswoman. So many women. Young Gracie Drummond, who I met last year, is helping Portland recover from the COVID event, putting night markets forward as an idea and driving that so that the business community can enjoy the Christmas opportunities that come from doing something like that. Well done.

But today I am also going to be welcoming a couple of young women into the Parliament to have lunch with them and celebrate International Women’s Day: Maddy McConnell and Kathryn Barkla launched We’ve Got You, a foundation to support families experiencing the loss of a child from conception through to age 16. Both these women came to see me last year. They both lost their children, their infants, and they are doing so much to help other women and their families – the spouse, the husband, as well – to go through that horrible experience with support. They have done an incredible job and will be very welcome today because I want to acknowledge the good work they do.

There are young girls like Alexandra Richardson – she is not a kid anymore, she is probably in her 30s, but I watched her grow up. She started her own business in Port Fairy and runs the Oak and Anchor restaurant. I really admire young people who are having a great opportunity at having a go at life and being role models themselves.

I met Carol Logan last week in Portland, an older lady who told me about the story of her husband, who has had diabetes for nearly 60 years, and how important the health service is to her and her husband and how she will be an advocate and has been an advocate to make sure Portland maintains the health services they need for that community, doing it all off her own back, just wanting to be a strong local advocate and doing a fantastic job.

There are so many women. Mary Irwin from Portland has been advocating for the Portland gymnastics centre to be built so the children there can continue that activity in an environment that is more suitable than they have currently got. Nicole Dwyer is a really hardworking advocate for Port Fairy netballers. There are very successful teams in the Port Fairy netball community as well. Mellissa Lynch works with neurodivergent children and is a strong advocate to make sure children are safe in our schools. Her experience is of children who have been unable to be kept in a safe environment despite all the good work that the principals and the teachers are doing. Because of the lack of support they are getting some of these children end up being significantly hurt in the school environment. Some of those stories that Mellissa talks to me about are more than disturbing. So I am very, very impressed with Mellissa’s advocacy.

Emma Mahony is a strong advocate in our community for women’s health and wellbeing. You know, it is something we need to put at front of mind, our health and wellbeing. Making sure we have got women like Emma doing that, I do really admire. Kim Kavanagh is a woman who has been the Business and Professional Women Geelong president for many years. I am sure Kim, as she keeps saying, would like to hand it over, but she is doing such an incredible job to make sure our businesswomen feel supported and have an environment in which they can come together and share the challenges and opportunities as I think it really does support them.

Sarah, Emma and Julie Holcombe, tireless fundraisers for palliative care services; Doreen Symes, the president of Promoting Portland; and the other businesswomen of the Portland community who come together and who I met with last year, all the work you all do really does progress our communities, and it does go unspoken. I am not highlighting them as the only people who do things, because there are people who pick up the neighbour and take them to their doctor’s appointment and they are all contributing.

I look back at how far we have come. When I was younger there were not female ambulance officers in Warrnambool and now there are. There are far more female police officers than there ever were before. We are seeing many more women in agriculture than we did before. In the dairy industry women have always played a significant role, but people like Shirley Harlock and Anne Adams have been trailblazers on boards. I came along after them and was able to chair a board having just had a child and bring that child into that environment. Hopefully with these role models we are putting an environment forward that does embrace and encourage younger women.

It is challenging. That child that I just referred to is my youngest. With today being International Women’s Day, I acknowledge the young women of today. She is working with the AFL for probably around 30 hours a week and studying full time at university doing her degree. It is role modelling for people like my young daughter, who I will welcome into the Parliament at 5:30 after she finishes work. We will have dinner together to celebrate International Women’s Day. As a working mother, it is not always easy. Your kids sometimes resent the fact that you are not there as much as you should be or could be, but having that role model I think is very important. That is the conversation that I had with her this morning about financial independence and the challenges that women have. She said, ‘Mum, but I admire what you are doing, because it gives me a good foundation for understanding what I need to do to set myself up.’

Happy International Women’s Day. Keep up, everyone, your good work. Thank you to the gentlemen who support me, surround me, and I acknowledge the work you do supporting women. That is why we have got the equality that we have, because of the respect I have here from my colleagues.

Vicki WARD (Eltham) (12:07): Like our previous speakers, I wish everyone a happy International Women’s Day, and may every day be International Women’s Day. This morning we started International Women’s Day in a really lovely way. It was down at Rod Laver Arena with the Minister for Women, as well as the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, unveiling the statue of Sharelle McMahon.

We have only a few statues of women in this city. I think there are five sportswomen that have been represented, including Sharelle McMahon. It is important for us have physical manifestations of women in front of us, to have young girls, women and older women see that women are respected and depicted. It has taken us a while to get to number five, and I look forward to number six, which is another netballer, coming soon. It has taken us time to get here, and I am glad that we have, because to be able to represent a woman of Sharelle McMahon’s talent, ability and dedication to her sport is important. We have statues of male sportspeople everywhere. We have statues of dogs, we have statues of racehorses, yet we have only nine statues of women in our city, or 10 today. It is shameful, colleagues. It is absolutely shameful.

Sharelle McMahon is an absolute netball legend. She has had a career spanning 25 years as both a player and coach, and she has achieved so much. She was a part of Melbourne Phoenix and then she was a player with Melbourne Vixens, playing over 200 games. She has played for the Australian Diamonds. She has been a part of Commonwealth Games gold winning teams. She has been a part of world championship winning teams. She is an absolutely fantastic player, and there are so many women who are fantastic at what they do who do not get recognised for that. There are so many women who achieve a lot in our community who are not recognised, who are in fact sometimes pushed to the side so that a bloke can get the limelight and the woman is not recognised at all.

I will give you a bit of a silly example, but I will give you an example nonetheless, and that is the game of Monopoly. A woman invented Monopoly. It was called the Landlord’s Game. She was an American woman. She invented it because she wanted to have a crack at the male ubercapitalists who were. at the turn of the 20th century, exploiting everyone and making a lot of money. It is ironic and sad that she was pushed to the side, the game was turned into Monopoly and became the game that we all know and play now. But her message was a bit missed. It is ironic that Monopoly was taken over by a bloke who made a lot of money selling it to the board game manufacturer and off it went.

A member interjected.

Vicki WARD: Absolutely, member for Geelong: what’s new?

It is just one little story, but it is a story nonetheless that really shows how many women have been sidelined despite their amazing achievements, despite their discoveries within science, within technology – the women who have developed code going back decades. We have all seen the movie where the woman plots the path for the moon landing. Nobody knew about these women at NASA who were doing this incredible mathematical computation, who were doing this amazing stuff, who were completely invisible to us. They were women of colour who were completely invisible to us until someone made a film about it and then we learned. It is important that we do learn and that we continue to remember and see our histories. But for a movie to have to be the thing that tells us this is a bit sad.

On International Women’s Day it is wonderful to see in Queen’s Hall that we have more women depicted visually there. I particularly want to call out Pauline Toner, who represented my community. She was the first woman, Labor woman, to represent my community at a local government level, the first woman to become mayor, the first woman to represent my community in state government and the first woman to become a cabinet minister in this state. It is quite gobsmacking that it took that long. She was elected in 1977 and became a minister in the early 1980s. It took so long for that to happen. It is amazing to think that it has only been 100 years that women have been allowed to try to be in this place. We could vote and win a national vote, but we could not be in this place until 100 years ago. It does my head in to think how many women – how many brains, how many contributions – have been held back and how different our city and our state could have been had women’s voices been encouraged and been allowed to be here.

I want to thank my party. I want to thank the Labor Party for the tremendous work it has done around gender equality and for the support that it continues to give and has given women for decades to have their voices heard. I am thankful to be a part of a party that wants to see women empowered and wants to see a community that reflects respect and empowerment towards women.

I also want to talk about Vida Goldstein. I find it amazing that we do not have a depiction of her, this woman who did so much work, who sadly was unsuccessful in her runs for Parliament but who did so much work to really be someone that other women could aspire to be, who could see that there was an opportunity to be a political activist, that there was an opportunity to strive for political power, to be a part of the decision-making process. This woman worked incredibly hard. While it is terrific that there is a seat – it is a pun; there is a memorial to her in Portland that is a seat, because she campaigned so hard to get one – in recognition of Vida Goldstein, but there is not an image of her. It helps for us to see ourselves, to be able to see other women out there, to walk past a woman and think, ‘That woman has done something. That woman is being recognised. That woman is being celebrated.’ There are so many statues to dead white men who were not huge contributors to society; they just happened to be someone with a lot of money at the time. To be able to have more women depicted in our community across our state is really important. I am grateful for the work that the Victorian government is doing, and the City of Melbourne, in encouraging and supporting artists to depict more women in our communities.

The motion put forward by the Minister for Women also talks about ‘for many years First Nations women did not have the same political rights as other Victorians’. This is absolutely shameful – it is horrible – and I am so glad that we are continuing to talk about this and that we are wanting to recognise and face our history, that we are not wanting to pretend that this history did not exist, that there was not a disenfranchisement. I look forward to more women’s stories being a part of the Voice movement that we will see this year, as well as the voices of the women who I know are speaking now through the treaty process that we are undertaking as a state government.

I want to talk about Aunty Pam Pedersen, who is a wonderful Yorta Yorta woman who lived in my community for many years and has – for me, unfortunately; for her, I know she loves it – moved back to Shepparton, which is her home. But we do miss her in my community. Her mother Lady Gladys Nicholls has one of the few statues of women in our city, and her arm is linked to that of her husband Sir Doug Nicholls, the pastor and humanitarian who worked hard to support the Aboriginal community including with the Aboriginal Advancement League. Lady Nicholls also worked hard to support the community around her, including those who were struggling. She was also an activist for the rights of women, and in the 1970s Lady Nicholls was appointed the Victorian state president of the National Aboriginal and Islander Women’s Council and was secretary of that national body.

Aunty Pam is someone who has absolutely kept her family’s sense of social justice and activism, of compassion and caring, going. She is a small woman who is an absolute powerhouse of energy and compassion and love. She continues to make an important contribution to our community across Victoria, whether it is in youth justice, whether it is for breast cancer survivors or whether it is for the benefits of exercise and being physically healthy. She will turn up and encourage anybody with this amazing smile that she has, the sparkles in her eyes so you just want to hug her, where you just want to be around her and get that beautiful energy she has got. She has a huge heart. She cares for everyone. She is so generous with her time, and this includes all of her volunteer work.

Aunty Pam’s is just one story of a woman who is doing amazing work that often goes under the radar, where she is supporting people, where she is walking with people, where she is encouraging them and helping them in their lives. So many women do this, and it is often not recognised. That is a tragedy. It is a tragedy that these stories do not get to be publicly told. We will all have women in our families who have done amazing things, like my nanna, who raised three girls on her own and did nothing but look out for and care for other people – an amazing woman. These are micro stories, but they are important stories. There are so many women who have done so much in this community whose stories deserve to be told and deserve to be celebrated, and I am glad we are celebrating International Women’s Day, but I want to celebrate these women every day.

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn – Leader of the Opposition) (12:17): I am delighted to be able to join this motion today to celebrate International Women’s Day. For me, as I reflect on the importance of this day, one of the most significant in the calendar of important things we celebrate during the year, it is about opportunity and security – opportunity and security for all. I do think it is fair to say that we still have a long way to go. We have made enormous strides in the cause of equality for all and more security for all, particularly the vulnerable. In many cases they are women and children, but we have a long way to go.

It is interesting as you reflect on the history particularly of the last century and the first two decades of this century that we have made significant strides. If you look in the area of electoral laws, the universal franchise, it took far too long, but we eventually achieved equality of franchise and the ability of people to nominate, stand and be elected to parliaments across our country. But it took a long time, and there was for many decades a great deal of resistance to that. If you look at another area of the law, equality of opportunity and antidiscrimination, it took far too long for the statute books to protect the ability of women in particular – and others, but principally women – to access the opportunities that were available to men. It was only in the 1970s that our equal opportunity laws reflected gender equality, and eventually they would go on to reflect equality in the areas of maternity leave and things like that, which are important if you are to extend opportunity to all.

In the criminal law it has been an area where I think it is clear to say, particularly in that jurisdiction, that women have not enjoyed the protections that, say, men have. Under governments of different political persuasions there have been reforms over the last two decades in particular, particularly in the face of domestic violence and sexual abuse, to protect women in particular but also children as well who have faced difficulties in bringing claims to the courts and seeking justice for wrongs done to them. It is only in recent years that we have amended our evidence acts to make sure that it is easier for victims of sexual and domestic violence to come forward. It has been very difficult for claimants, for victims, to come to the courts and pursue claims. I know from my work in various parts of my career in the justice system that it is not always easy for women to come forward who have faced serious incidents of violence or sexual abuse, and we have more to go on that front.

Those legal changes have been important, but I want to spend a little bit of time today just talking about the importance of cultural change. We can change the laws – and that is perhaps an easier aspect of the task, to amend our laws – but it is about changing culture. In the area of domestic and family violence I still think we have got a long way to go to change the culture. Yes, efforts in good faith have been taken to deal with the scourge of family violence. But we know from the statistics that are coming out that many women and children still face domestic and family violence in Victoria, and those figures are stubbornly high. That is because we still need cultural change across sport, the arts – right across our culture we still in many ways emphasise a subtext of violence in how we treat domestic and family violence, so we have got more to do on the cultural front.

Access in the workplace is another area where culturally we still have more progress to make. If you look at what has held particularly women back in the workforce, I think we have had outdated attitudes to the idea of remote leadership, particularly with young women who are coming through, let us say, a corporate employer on a trajectory of promotion but want to have kids. For far too long many employers have seen that as incompatible with that female employee being able to continue on that trajectory. For many women I know, having worked in many aspects of corporate Australia advising clients on modernising their employment practices, having kids has been a roadblock to their career, and it should not be.

In a strange way COVID actually brought all of this into focus, because for the first time employers were able to, if you like, allow employees to operate remotely. I have always believed that one of the biggest hindrances to female employees being able to achieve positions of leadership in organisations has been this outdated attitude, so the idea is that you can allow, accommodate and even promote the idea of remote leadership to allow those women who want to to take time out – for whatever reason, but in many cases it is to have kids. Employers need to modernise their attitudes and not be, if you like, deterred by the idea that a really talented employee who wants to take time out should be able to continue. So we have got a way to go on that. If you look at the ASX companies, how many of those companies are predominantly populated with female members on their boards? We still have a long way to go, so those attitudinal and cultural changes are still necessary.

I do want to just spend a bit of time acknowledging some of the outstanding women in the electorate of Hawthorn and around Boroondara who do terrific work, and on a day like this it is important to recognise them. I would like to acknowledge Amanda Donohoe, who is the CEO of Servants Community Housing. It is a charitable organisation in Boroondara, predominantly in Kew and Hawthorn, and Servants Community Housing provides urgent accommodation for people who have fallen on hard times. They come from everywhere. There are people who have had fine careers and even been economically secure with no financial insecurity to affect them but fall on hard times for whatever reason it might be. Amanda is a trailblazer. She has staff who, like her, are totally dedicated to the people they are looking after, and they have in the last few years expanded their operations to provide accommodation for women fleeing family violence – an outstanding leader in our community.

I also want to mention Jane Stewart, someone with a corporate background who a few years ago decided that there was something more to do outside of her work, so she founded It’s the Little Things Community. This is an organisation that has gone from nowhere and in a hurry to providing over 10,000 meals as of late last year from a standing start, providing meals for people who have fallen on hard economic times. Jane did not have to do that. She has built a fantastic team of dynamic volunteers who are out there providing meals for people who cannot otherwise put food on the table – an outstanding leader in our community.

I would also like to acknowledge the mayor of Boroondara. Felicity Sinfield is a member of Victoria Police, a mother of children and yet also able to be an outstanding mayor of Boroondara and a long-term councillor in the area. I was at an International Women’s Day function today at the Hawthorn Arts Centre that Felicity hosted – an outstanding community leader who is able to demonstrate that she can be a fantastic role model for young women who want to get involved in public office.

The final person in the community I did want to recognise is Jan Dimmick. Jan may be known to some people in this house. She is, if you like, someone who has been in Boroondara for decades. She is 95 years old, still going strong, the chair of the Boroondara Australia Day committee and committed to volunteer work across a range of things, from taking tours at the MCG to working with local charities and also attending every citizenship ceremony that she can at that advanced age to welcome new members of the Australian family. Jan, like the other outstanding individuals I have mentioned, is someone we can all look up to – not just young women but all of us, men included.

I cannot finish today’s address without acknowledging the influence of my wife Betty and my three daughters on me and how important it is for all men to realise that we have had opportunities, particularly in our generation, that did not come so easily to those who were before us or even women who grew up with us. And some of those things I spoke about at the start – the importance of cultural change, which has to underpin all of the legislative changes that we have made – remain important. So I acknowledge Betty and my daughters and also my fantastic mum and my own sisters. Thank you, and I join with everybody in this house in wishing everybody a happy International Women’s Day.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (12:27): I am very happy to rise today and speak on this wonderful International Women’s Day, noting that Victoria is leading the nation in gender equality. Of course that is not by accident and it has been an extraordinary amount of work over many, many years to get to where we are today, noting there is so much more to do.

I did just want to pick up on a couple of points, because yes, I agree, today we do not want to be sledging other women. And yet some sledges were made. I heard some inferences about how some women gained their seats on this side of the fence, querying things such as merit; inferences about quota; and putting down people who might have worked in unions as if somehow this is a bad thing. We know nurses, we know teachers, we know ambos, we know meteorologists and others belong to unions, so I found that quite extraordinary. I did think, ‘Why are we making sledges?’ Yes, let us not make sledges. Let us not make them. But they were made, so I just thought we needed to pick up on them, because let me tell you: every time you run out, put on the record player and replay ‘The quotas: mustn’t have quotas; we’re fantastic because we don’t have quotas; we’re better than you’ it is a gift to misogynists. It is a gift to them, because let me tell you: they do not like quotas. Why do they not like quotas? Because they work. They work. And let me tell you: the Andrews Labor government is leading the country by example. Decades of action, including affirmative action and quotas, has meant that 54 per cent of Labor Party members of Parliament are women. This extends to the cabinet, where 64 per cent of ministers are women. Okay – you get my point.

There are other inferences, and I think we have to take care in this as well. I am not here because of my gender, not here because of ‘characteristics’. I have got some characteristics, and they have led to me being here today – persistence, resilience. I have had a lot of education. I would like to think we are loyal – and I am not just talking about myself, fellow colleagues here too have such generosity. They work hard. These are characteristics, and I am pretty certain that members in the community can see this. They can see this with their own eyes. I actually have plenty of people in the community who are pretty glad to have a woman in Parliament. Yes, I am a woman. Oh, my goodness! How dare I, or how dare anyone in the community be happy that a woman has been elected to Parliament? It is inferred that you cannot do this job just because of your gender; you have to have many good – great – characteristics to be able to endure the role, don’t you, because it is hard work. People can see this, so we have to be careful about oversimplifying what gets us here and why we are here at this point in time. So I did feel the need to raise this.

Now, gender, that very important topic, has been a barrier to women getting in here, so we should celebrate the fact of people of female gender being able to be elected to Parliament, but that does not infer that women do not have merit when they are elected to Parliament, because we know there are so many wonderful Victorian women, actually women across the globe, who have many wonderful qualities, who are well educated and who can do so many great things for their community. There are plenty of women to fill a quota, let me tell you, who are aptly qualified to do so, and we can see evidence of this in both the state and federal parliaments. I hope my point has been made.

In any case, talking about the gender barriers that we have been able to surmount – and that is why we are here today – I am actually going to quote something from history, from the wonderful book The Borough and its People: Port Melbourne:

By a serious oversight, on the part of the Parliamentary draftsman, the Electoral Act of 1863 that granted the right to vote to ratepayers, failed to define them as male ratepayers, permitting women to register and actually vote in the general election of 1865. As the parliamentary website comments: Shocked at such effrontery, and embarrassed by their oversight, Members of the Legislative Assembly hastily amended the offending clause early in 1865 by restricting the vote for parliamentary elections strictly to male ratepayers … which was decidedly not a victory for women’s rights.

Can we see how far we have come? Is this not wonderful? But we could see back then gender was a barrier, so I do not understand why there is such an issue about drawing attention to gender and about women being elected to Parliament, because there is a danger in this. You are sending a signal, and it is not only to people here, it is to the women out there: ‘Don’t push too far forward. Don’t be too assertive. Just hold yourself back a little bit, because someone might get uncomfortable.’ Well, it is because people have been made uncomfortable that we have got to where we are today, so I think we have to take great care in the signals that we send in the speeches that we deliver in this Parliament. I am just putting it out there.

A further point I want to make is with regard to the issue of characteristics such as resilience. Can I give you an example. On 19 occasions between 1889 and 1908, private members bills were introduced in the attempt to give women the vote, but the support was insufficient to get a bill through the ultraconservative Legislative Council. The Victorian suffrage society was founded in 1884 by a small group of women, including Henrietta Dugdale and Isabella Goldstein – Vida Goldstein’s mother, fancy that. The great women’s suffrage petition of 1891 was drawn up by a number of suffrage organisations working together, including the suffrage society and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. In the course of a few months they collected signatures from 28,000 women all over Victoria by doorknocking suburb by suburb and town by town, and just to note, in Port Melbourne 515 women signed. I just have to draw attention to that because obviously that is in the seat of Albert Park, and I am very proud of their efforts, because all of this incredible work has led us to the path where we are here today, so I think that has to be commended as well.

I certainly appreciate greatly the fact that we do have greater than parity in terms of the representation of women in our government, because you can feel the strength of your place in the Parliament. You know that your voice is actually genuinely being heard, and my colleagues can probably reflect on that. I do feel genuinely when I am talking to my male and female colleagues that we are genuinely heard, and I am not just saying that lightly. I can tell the difference from when I have experienced some other workplaces where there was not the same parity. Definitely when we are talking about that issue of culture, we can see that all the tremendous structural reforms that have been put in place are making a difference. I would like to think that – obviously this is one example, and I hope that we are leading the way; I believe we are – that will also then translate to the broader community.

For instance, when we are talking about great, important structural reforms – because it is one thing to talk about niceties but it is another thing to be able to implement change that makes a difference – as a result of the Gender Equality Act 2020, 300 public sector organisations measure progress on gender equality in their organisations and take action to reduce the gender pay gap and rates of sexual harassment. These organisations must also consider and address gender bias in their own programs and services, which will lead to better outcomes for all Victorians.

I am just zoning in on one example of many, many reforms that have been implemented in order to change the community in which we live, and that is the wonderful change whereby we will install 1500 free pad and tampon machines at up to 700 public sites, including public hospitals, courts, TAFEs, public libraries, train stations and major cultural institutions like the State Library Victoria and the Melbourne Museum. I think many women can reflect on their earlier years of life. If one deals with embarrassment, that is a great thing. It obviously is a great equaliser because it means everybody has fair and reasonable access to products that they absolutely need, but it also sends a really important signal that you are supported irrespective of your socio-economic background, that you will be supported by the community in which you live, that you are a female and you are supported just as well as the men. There are so many layers to these reforms when you look at all the various aspects of the changes that have been brought about through our government, and I am so very proud of them and very proud to be part of our government here today. Happy International Women’s Day.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (12:37): It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the motion about International Women’s Day – and happy International Women’s Day to everyone in here today. As I was approaching contributors for this motion and organising the schedule as the Nationals Whip I approached our esteemed Leader of the Nationals and asked if he wished to contribute. And his reply, let Hansard reflect, was: ‘I don’t need to, it’s not our place. We know where we stand; we just do as we are told. You ladies say “Jump” and we say “How high?”’ I say, it is about time. He is in fact going to speak later on, along with a few of our other Nationals colleagues, including our member for Shepparton who has not yet spoken and will do so after lunch.

As I think about what International Women’s Day means, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge just a few of the remarkable women from our region in the great north-west of this state. Siobhan Stagg, who is an international soprano, has been back in Australia recently – very recently in fact – as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra soloist in residence. She was presented with the key to the City of Mildura; it is the place where she grew up. An internationally acclaimed soprano, educated in Mildura, grew up there and now lives in Berlin and travels the world – born and raised in Mildura. Kim O’Reilly, who I have had the pleasure of podcasting with, is a domestic violence survivor and fierce advocate through her work with ‘It’s never ok’ and she advocates for tougher laws for perpetrators. She is a warrior. When we talk about strength, particularly in women, there are few stronger than Kim.

Speaking of women warriors, Katrina Umback, after losing her husband far, far, far too young to a heart condition, is a fierce advocate for the Heart Foundation and working toward making sure that your postcode does not dictate whether you can get treatment for what kills more people in regional Victoria than anything else, and that is heart disease. She is also a passionate product of the Northern Mallee Leaders program.

I also want to acknowledge Dr Anne Webster. Not only is she our federal representative but she is also the founder of Zoe Support Australia. He is not in here at the moment, but the member for Mornington was on the board of Zoe Support. It is a not-for-profit, community-based organisation for young mums aged 13 to 25, because often teenage pregnancy and motherhood can be looked upon as a deficit.

Zoe Support is there to offer pre-birth support for young pregnant women and opportunities for parenting mothers to learn new skills and re-engage in education. It is an amazing organisation, and Dr Anne Webster is a remarkable woman. She is in Canberra right now as our federal representative.

Of course I do need to acknowledge a young lady who I am eternally proud of and who is just one of the reasons that I do what I do, and that is my stepdaughter Scarlett. I am going to try to hold together. She has just turned 14. Happy birthday, honey. She is navigating the start of her adolescence with a lot of sass but an equal amount of grace, and I just cannot wait to see where life takes her. She certainly puts her father back in his place from time to time and certainly helps me do the same, which is terrific.

Peter Walsh: I feel sorry for Luke.

Jade BENHAM: I do not. I also want to acknowledge the mums in my electorate who raise our future food producers and leaders each and every day. Being a stay-at-home mum is not for the faint of heart. I could not do it, but I absolutely commend those that do. We appreciate you.

In my very first contribution in this place I spoke about the strong line of women that I come from. My Italian grandmother emigrated out here to be with my grandfather, who she had only met in childhood in the 1950s. She could not cook, and I bring that up all the time because she could not cook, but she could work, and I am clearly descended from her, not being a fan of domestic duties. I would much rather be out in the field getting my hands dirty working.

My maternal grandmother, the daughter of a World War I hero, grew up on harsh Mallee land in the 1920s. She could cook. She was excellent at CWA sponges and scones – she did not pass that on to me, unfortunately – and she went on to become the first A-grade netball umpire in northern Victoria in the 1970s. Now, that is a feat in and of itself – to put in the work and to have to travel around in her orange Toyota Crown, which I am sure today would be a classic but I think is long gone at this stage.

Of course my own mother at just 26 years old was raising a baby alone – me – and running a grape block whilst Dad was off on a little holiday courtesy of Her Majesty. Since then she has been a driving force and exactly the reason I am the way I am. She went back to work in real estate when farming no longer fed the family, as it does from year to year. Then, after working hard, she bought her own small jewellery business, Kennedy’s Showcase Jewellers in Swan Hill, which she still runs with passion and love each and every day. One day I hope that she actually slows down a bit to enjoy the fruits of her labour, but I think with golf at least a couple of times a week she is doing that in part already. She is part of the reason I am the way I am, but let us not forget the men that are part of our lives.

My dad, who could handle my mum and two very, very headstrong daughters – I do not know how he survived our adolescent years, but he did. My husband is the one who not only can handle me but actually creates a safe space for me away from the world, and I appreciate him every day. Our Leader of the Nationals and our colleagues on this side of the chamber, who probably do not even consciously do it, have created a safe space for us women, and it empowers us every day to contribute in this place in an equal and positive way without even having to think about it – it is just the default. I appreciate you gentlemen every day, so thank you.

May we raise more strong women into the future and men who have respect for us so that it is not even a conversation about culture, about equality and about gender into the future, it is simply the default of a functional and equal society. That is all from me today. Happy International Women’s Day.

Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (12:44): I rise to join in the celebrations around the world today for International Women’s Day. Happy IWD, everyone. For over 100 years International Women’s Day has taken place on 8 March. Each year we come together and we celebrate the achievements of women around the world and empower women and girls to encourage action on issues of gender equality.

It is a day to focus on gender equality for girls and women in the areas of poverty, empowerment in leadership, personal and family safety and access to education. While International Women’s Day celebrates inspirational contemporary and historical women, the day also aims to start conversations about gender equity. Here in Victoria it is an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the fact it has been 100 years since women won the right to stand for election in the Victorian Parliament. Having a voice is powerful. It is a privilege, and so many people do not have it when they should. Some communities have been fighting for too long to have their voices heard, especially in Parliament. I am proud that there have been 108 women in the Victorian Legislative Assembly since its establishment in 1856. It is, however, unfortunate that we have only had one female Premier, and that was of course the inspirational Joan Kirner. Joan was a friend and a mentor to me. Joan was initially elected to the other place in 1982 before coming to the Assembly in 1984. Joan became our 42nd Premier in 1990. Despite discrimination and unjust treatment by the press, Joan always persevered and advocated for the women of this state. Now, she was actually faced with real misogynists, and one of the elements of that was a misogynistic cartoon of her in a polka dot dress, despite her never owning one. She took the high ground, holding a Spot on Joan concert and declaring the spot a symbol of courage. I think this quote from Joan sums up her courage in politics:

I’ve given a lot and I’ve copped a lot. But I believe I’ve got a role to play by insisting that women be judged by their contribution – not somebody’s view of what they should be about.

After Joan’s career in politics she continued in public life, devoting her time to many of her passions, including the EMILY’s List organisation. For those of you that do not know EMILY’s List, it is an organisation assisting progressive Labor women to get elected to Australian parliaments, and today I am proudly wearing an EMILY’s List brooch. Joan played a very special part in my life and she is actually the reason why I got involved in politics. She was an inspiration to me and also to so many women.

Women have had the right to vote in Victoria since 1908, however have only had the right to stand as candidates for the Legislative Assembly since 1923. The first successful female candidate for the Legislative Assembly was elected in a by-election in 1933. Interestingly, she retired in 1935, stating – and I do disagree with this – that Parliament was no place for a woman. Interestingly, however, the first time a woman won a seat at a general election – in Nunawading – only happened in 1937. It was not until 1982 that Victoria saw its first female minister, who was Pauline Toner, and that was for the Labor Party.

I want to put on the record from all of the women in my electorate and across Victoria our thanks to that handful of women who in 1891 took to the streets with a petition to collect signatures from men and women acknowledging that women should vote on equal terms with men. Whilst 1908 is recognised as the year women won the right to vote here in Victoria, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sisters had to wait until 1962 to gain the same right at both state and federal levels, and they are still waiting for their voice.

I know what it is like to be the only woman in a room full of men. During my time at the Rail, Tram and Bus Union alongside many other women we started the women’s committee. This was back in 2010. We found this committee to be a way to support our sisters in male-dominated industries. I am proud to have advanced the cause of women in the union, being elected as the first female secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union in 2014 and the first female national president in 2021, and I will always fight to make sure that women feel seen and are heard at work. One small win which we had at the Rail, Tram and Bus Union – it was small, but it made such a huge difference and had an everlasting impact on our members – was that we were the first blue-collar union in Australia to get paid domestic violence leave into every single one of our enterprise agreements. This did not just happen; we fought for it, and we fought bloody hard, but I and the other women and the feminists – some of the blokes – at the RTBU were proud of this achievement as it has helped hundreds of members, and that clause still remains in every single one of those enterprise agreements.

I am passionate about assisting domestic violence victims. No-one deserves to be a victim – no woman, no man, no child – nobody. However, so many children are living within homes marked by dangerous words and harmful physical abuse. While I am serving in this place I hope that I will have an opportunity to continue the long legacy of Labor women and men who have worked to prevent family violence and bring justice to women and children. The record $3 billion investment made by the Andrews government was built on the shoulders of advocacy by feminists and women’s organisations and by a number of brave women ministers such as Kay Setches, Joan Kirner, Candy Broad and the late Fiona Richardson. The most dangerous locations for family violence in Victoria are in the regions, but sadly the area around Melton in my electorate is also a significant hotspot. I will do anything to help women escape violence.

The west is full of culturally significant places for its people. Every day while I visit community groups and volunteer organisations I see many women and men working hard to ensure that they can better assist their communities. As one of the most culturally diverse electorates in the state, Kororoit is often the first place that people born overseas call home in Victoria. Our community is richly populated with new migrants from Asia, the subcontinent, Africa and Eastern Europe. People of all faiths and languages find peace and community in Kororoit, and often it is the women in each family who are the golden thread and the backbone. I have loved getting to know all of the cultural community clubs in the region. These clubs assist with transitioning families into Australian life and are essential to social cohesion and peaceful communities. On Monday, when I hosted the first Kororoit International Women’s Day lunch, we had many women from these communities along.

We know that equality will only come with embedding change into our systems and our institutions. I am proud to be part of the Andrews Labor government, which is leading the nation on gender equality, especially here in Parliament. Last year out of the 56 seats won by the Labor Party in this chamber, 30 of them were won by women – that is 54 per cent. In the Legislative Council, eight out of the 15 seats won by Labor are held by women, making another 54 per cent, and trust me those women are bloody good. They did not just get there by quotas.

Last December, following our third consecutive victory at a state election, the Premier announced a ministry of 22 members, 14 of whom are women. Not only is the Labor Party and the government committed to ensuring that women have opportunities and success in being elected to Parliament but since we came to government we have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to improving outcomes for women in every setting and at every stage of life. It is why we enshrined gender equality in law with the Gender Equality Act 2020 to address issues like the gender pay gap and sexual harassment in the public sector. We are the only jurisdiction in Australia to have such powerful legislation. It is why we established the gender responsive budgeting unit to consider the gendered impact of government decisions across the entire budget process. We are currently the only jurisdiction to have such a unit.

The 2022–23 state budget was the first time that a gender lens was used on a budget, which saw approximately $940 million in initiatives primarily aimed at improving outcomes for women. The Victorian government established and responded to the inquiry into economic equity for Victorian women and committed $3 million to industry strategies in manufacturing and energy to help women enter and stay in male-dominated sectors. We will deliver an ambitious overhaul of early childhood education and care with our Best Start, Best Life initiative, with a massive $9 billion investment over the next decade to save families money and support women to return to the workforce. In an Australian first we will begin work to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements for workplace sexual harassment cases in Victoria, which are often misused to silence victim-survivors, protect employer reputations and allow employers to avoid full liability. We have supported women, we continue to support women, and on that note, happy International Women’s Day.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:54): Today the Parliament rises, as it should, to acknowledge and celebrate International Women’s Day. It is a day that celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. As we think through the importance of the last 100 years and the importance of the motion and what we stand for today, we think about the equality movement and we think about social change and the way that social change happens in our society.

A number of speakers have eloquently spoken about that last hundred years, but I would like to make a few points in relation to the future and the way that we can progress and move forward and make social change in the future, because it is something that our Parliament should think through as to whether or not we as a Parliament are connected in the community in a way that brings through the social change that is needed in a timely way, brings through the changes in laws and brings through the changes in culture.

I would like to raise a few instances of women who have made those changes – for example, Cathy Freeman, who at the Commonwealth Games, in the victory lap of the 200-metre sprint, carried both the Australian and Aboriginal flags, in contrast to the Olympic committee’s protocol. What an incredible moment of power we watched as she did that. Or there is Chanel Contos, who asked on Instagram whether anybody had been sexually assaulted and initially had 200 people reply ‘yes’. She then started an online petition which saw 45,000 signatures, mostly from children. Her work went on to lead the nation in terms of consent-teaching in schools around Australia and reform of sexual assault reporting by police.

Or there is Tayla Harris, who posted a simple photo of herself at work kicking a football as a significant women’s football team player and was harassed to the point of reconsidering whether or not she could even have social media accounts. She has spoken publicly about the effect of the behaviour on her mental health. She said at the time:

Here’s a pic of me at work … think about this before your derogatory comments, animals.

I think her words were words that so many of us felt, and we were as a community disgusted by what she experienced.

Or there is Grace Tame, who stood up and had Tasmania’s Evidence Act 2001 changed following a court action. The abuser in her case had bragged about sexual assault crimes in relation to her – outrageous. She stood up, and after a long fight the law in Tasmania was changed. But there are even other instances – and I think we will see some of these social changes play out over coming years – like Jelena Dokic, who stood up recently in relation to body-shaming and the type of body-shaming she has received, again online, from anonymous, hidden people who hide their names.

As a Parliament we need to think about these women and say, ‘This motion shouldn’t just be about celebrating the past.’ We as a Parliament need to reflect on the types of changes these women have pushed for and how we can do better to ensure that the changes we need to see happen. The pushes that are happening in the community from many strong, young women – we need to reflect on how we can see our laws changed and reformed, how we can see our culture as a community change and what we as members of this place can do to ensure that. Because we are not here as peers of the community, we are part of the community. What all of these women have shown us is that it took too long for them to achieve what they were pushing to achieve. Many of these changes happened, which is fantastic, but we should also reflect not only on the past but on what we can do as a Parliament and as parliamentary representatives in the future to make sure that social change and equality happen more quickly.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:01 pm.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.

The SPEAKER: I acknowledge the Honourable Judy Maddigan in the gallery today.