Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (09:50): I rise to commend the Northern Territory Liberal Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro for her courageous and principled decision to ban biological males from all women’s prisons. It is the first government to take such a step in Australia, but it was taken only after a female inmate was raped by a male, saying he is a woman, in that prison. She has done what no other leader in this state has been willing to do: she acted to protect women, not ideology. Again I would remind people that here in Victoria, in my region, in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, women are still being forcibly housed with a twice-convicted male rapist, and they do not want to be. Staff and survivors have spoken out, and the government has refused to listen. But they need to listen, because safety is not discrimination, reality is not hate, and protecting women’s spaces is not bigotry. It is actually the bare minimum of justice, and I hope this Labor government gets on board quickly.