Thursday, 7 March 2024

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (10:10): As I stand here as an elected member of this Parliament on the eve of International Women’s Day, I stand here wearing the women’s colours but also very proudly wearing my women’s suffrage brooch. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when our great-grandmothers fought for the right not only to vote but also to stand for Parliament, it was not a time when they wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans. So to self-identify, women wore jewellery in the women’s colours of purple, white and green – amethysts for the purple, either pearls or diamonds for the white and a peridot or emerald to signify the green colour. This was their way of self-identifying that they supported other women.

I also want to pay tribute to Sir Robert Menzies, who 80 years ago formed the Liberal Party, and in doing that he partnered with the Australian Women’s National League. Menzies was truly a man of the future. Eighty years ago he gave women in our party equal representation at all levels of the party. We have enjoyed that. It is not something we have had to fight for. We have enjoyed having equal representation. It has also been forgotten in recent times that it was Liberal governments that passed legislation and made some of the great changes that enhanced the status of women. In this state alone, it was a Hamer government that passed the first Victorian equal opportunity act.