Tuesday, 8 March 2022

International Women’s Day

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (12:51): On this International Women’s Day I am going to acknowledge the many women who do not get acknowledged and the long list of things that still need to get done. I acknowledge the many women who cannot afford to go to an International Women’s Day breakfast and are too busy looking after the kids, and I ask why these events are organised at times that are least suitable for women with small children anyway, juggling breakfast, getting kids ready for school, doing lunches, feeding pets and getting out the door themselves. I acknowledge women with disability; those who care for loved ones with a disability; black women and queer women, who deserve respect and equal employment opportunities; the countless women who speak truth to power, pay the price and never have their stories told; the need for women to be employed in workplaces which are free from sexual harassment, bullying and undermining without management using legitimate processes set up to weed out shit behaviours by men being corrupted to whitewash investigation outcomes and enter the relentless media campaigns used to respond to sexual harassment cases involving high-profile and powerful men; the need for the victim blaming and weaponising of women’s complaints to end; the need for women to be represented in positions of real power; the need for women to no longer retire in poverty, as the embedded structural inequalities in our superannuation system has helped to create women over 50 being the largest growing cohort of homeless people in Australia—this is a national embarrassment; and the need for there to be a price on care so that we can end the situation where profits are made off the backs of the unpaid labour of women, who contribute millions to our economy each and every year. In conclusion, there is much more work to do, and this International Women’s Day 2022 tells us that this work is more urgent than ever.