Wednesday, 31 July 2024

 Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Employment) (14:37): We are a government that takes women’s and girls’ health seriously, just as seriously as we take respect. I recently hosted the Minister for Health in Montmorency at a women’s pain round table MCed by the terrific Sue Rosenhain from Women’s Health in the North. I want to shout out my appreciation, as I know everybody on this side of the chamber wants to, for the terrific work that is done by our women’s health organisations in preventing and supporting people who have experienced family violence. In Montmorency we have lived experience of pain being ignored, of being dismissed and of not being respected. The conversations were of being disempowered and dismissed, being told you are just menopausal or it is normal period pain. These are stories of disrespect. We want to change these stories. We want all women and girls to be respected across our state, whether it is in health care, in education, in our sporting clubs, in businesses or of course in their homes.

The Allan Labor government knows that respect is the cornerstone of gender equality in our state. We established Respect Victoria, our leading agency for primary prevention of gendered violence. Respect Victoria will be leading the nation’s first concentrated approach to prevention through the Ballarat saturation model, taking a whole-of-community approach to developing respect and safety for women and girls. I thank the member for Wendouree, the member for Eureka and the member for Ripon for inviting me and the Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change to listen to students from every local secondary school speak powerfully about respect, safety and equality. These students know that respect, kindness and leadership are key to achieving full equality and respect and to ending gendered violence. I promised these students we will continue to work hard towards these goals, and whether it is in my community in Monty or in Ballarat or anywhere else across our state, we are making it clear this is not negotiable.