Tuesday, 17 March 2020

International Women’s Day

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (14:11): This month I hosted my second annual International Women’s Day morning tea. Women and young girls from across my electorate of Tarneit gathered at the Little Growling Cafe, where we drank our coffee and ate delicious food. We laughed, we shared stories together and we reflected.

I spoke about my own experiences: my experience as a daughter of a nurse who gave up her career to stay at home and take care of us when we were kids, as a young law graduate starting her career in a heavily male-dominated industry and as a mother going back to work for the first time since having my kids, not being taken seriously and having to juggle my career as a working mum—to becoming the member for Tarneit and being part of this Parliament, which has a cabinet with an equal number of women and most certainly a Labor caucus of almost 50 per cent women.

At this event there were mums, grandmothers, students, carers, small business owners—so many women from all different walks of life. We celebrated the contributions that our gender has made to our local community and the challenges and road ahead to achieve equality not only here in Victoria but across our country.

I also had the wonderful staff and students from Truganina South Primary School attend on the day, who told me that they were going to host a Girls Night In to celebrate our government’s initiative of putting free tampons and pads in schools. It filled me with great pride to see how these initiatives are being welcomed and celebrated by our community. Thank you to all the fabulous women and girls that attended.