Tuesday, 28 July 2026

 Melissa HORNE (Williamstown – Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence) (14:16): When a Senator of the Australian Parliament declares that abused women should not put up with it, she is not just wrong; she is doing damage. Blaming victims is not okay. It was not okay decades ago, and it is not okay now. But that is what One Nation do: they punch down, they peddle myths and they drag public debate back decades while women and children are dying. Every 11 days a woman is killed by someone she trusts, and Senator Hanson’s contribution is to tell women to stop putting up with it. Women do not put up with family violence; they are trapped by fear, by coercive control, by financial dependence and by genuine risk to their lives. The most dangerous time for a woman is when she tries to leave. Telling women to simply walk away is not advice, it is blame, and every time a public figure makes a comment like Senator Hanson’s, it gets harder for victim-survivors to come forward and makes it easier for perpetrators to hide.

What have we heard from those opposite? Nothing. Their silence tells Victorian women exactly where they stand, and worse, they will not rule out once and for all any deal, any preference or any arrangement with a party that blames women for the violence inflicted upon them. On this side of the house we choose women’s safety every day in every decision, and we keep building a Victoria where every woman and every child is safe. So I ask the Leader of the Opposition: with $40 billion –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, respectfully, I believe the minister is making a ministers statement. I do not understand what the minister is doing by way of asking the opposition a question. The minister is delivering a ministers statement; this is not question time to the opposition.

Anthony Carbines: On the point of order, Speaker, I ask you rule the point of order out of order. There was no point of order; there was just a ramble.

The SPEAKER: I remind members that there are correct ways to raise points of order.

Melissa HORNE: As I was saying, with $40 billion worth of cuts on the table, will the Leader of the Opposition look every victim-survivor in the eye and say that a Liberal–One Nation coalition will not cut a penny from it?