Tuesday, 7 March 2023

Family violence

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (13:13): We are nine weeks into 2023, and already 11 women have been killed in Australia because of family or gendered violence. Ten of those women were killed within the space of 20 days. Family violence prevention advocates have rightly been asking: where are the protests? Where are the vigils? Where is the outcry? Instead we hear more silence.

As we prepare to mark International Women’s Day 2023, we condole the loss of these women, often killed by the people they trusted the most. We keep their families and communities in our hearts, and we resolve to never forget and we resolve to act. This action needs all of us to work together. It needs multipartisanship. It needs governments to bring us all into the conversations and solutions, including our culturally diverse communities. I remain deeply concerned that these communities – our communities – continue to be left out of the policy dialogue, problem solving and funding.

Tonight the Multicultural Alliance of Women against Family Violence, a community alliance of powerful women, is hosting an event, Cracking the Cultural Code, in Parliament, and you have all been invited. The alliance are apolitical and determined to ensure that grassroots community organisations are listened to by governments and supported through funding to do the life-saving work of preventing family violence and deaths. I hope that as many of you as possible are able to attend.

Our multicultural communities are at the front line of family violence epidemics. They are losing women every week, and their stories are not being heard. Mainstream approaches have failed our communities. We still do not have a culturally specific women’s refuge in Victoria, despite many other states going ahead. We must do more, and we must do that work now.