Thursday, 16 October 2025

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:37): (2015) My adjournment is for the Minister for Corrections. The action I seek – given that the Premier has quietly announced that there will be some changes taking place – is that he immediately transfer all biological males out of all women’s prisons. Political leaders have for too long bowed down to often paid fringe activists that have redefined the word ‘woman’. This has actually harmed biologically female women. We cannot have women being raped in their prisons by men identifying as women. Hard-fought gains are being stripped away from women – legal protections going, professional achievements going and dedicated spaces gone.

My constituents have contacted me. They are furious that former Clayton South resident and transgender paedophile with the pseudonym Hilary Maloney has been residing in a women-only prison. Maloney was sprung after an investigation into an international paedophile ring, and what did they uncover? A sickening slave/master fetish involving another paedophile; 77 child abuse files, including 64 images and 13 videos; and a five-year-old daughter whose body was abused and innocence was stolen. Under current sentencing guidelines, Maloney’s crimes received a maximum of 25 years, but under our weak sentencing guidelines, Maloney will serve only a maximum of 4¾ years, and at the moment, 2½ years, behind bars. While I acknowledge that the courts can make their decisions, Maloney’s alleged low self-esteem, lack of assertiveness, loneliness, submission and desperation were grounds for the slap on the wrist.

In all of this talk about the mitigating circumstances, has anyone thought about Maloney’s daughter? Quite frankly, no-one should use the excuse of a hard life to escape a full sentence. Our justice system must send a powerful message to any would-be child abusers: if you inappropriately touch a child, you must experience the full force of the law. To add insult to injury, Maloney is residing – or has been; I do not know whether he still is – at one of Victoria’s two women-only prisons, rather than at a male prison where Maloney belongs. Why? Because he identified as a woman. It is true to form that both the Premier and the minister have played a game of political volleyball, passing the responsibility on this saga between each other and the courts. This has been an absolute disgrace. The women of this state will not accept your silence and blame shifting. Biological males should not be in women’s spaces – not ever, full stop.