Tuesday, 26 November 2024

 Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (13:17): This week marks the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence across international communities and across Australia and Victoria. It was really moving to join the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence on Friday and 8500-plus Victorians as we marched against gender-based violence and acknowledged the horrific toll that is taken, with gender-based violence taking the lives of women, girls and children in our community. Some 66 women’s lives have been taken and more than a dozen kids have lost their lives at the hands of gender-based violence. We know that the challenges around gender-based violence are complex, but it starts with men and boys. It is not all men, as we hear, but all men and boys can make a difference as upstanders in our community by changing those gender inequities and rigid stereotypes, which we know harm both women and men, and research shows that they are some of the drivers of family violence.

We delivered the 227 recommendations in January 2023, but we know some of the hardest elements of reform are changing cultures and attitudes and those damaging gender-based stereotypes. As the Victorian Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change and working closely with the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, it is really important that we engage all men and boys across communities and ensure that we are all upstanders in challenging those stereotypes, leading to a safer and more inclusive world for women and girls.