Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (13:31): This week I was absolutely honoured to meet a very, very brave 11-year-old girl, Emily Tuohy, and I heard of her dreams of following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who was an Olympic gold medallist for Australia. Her face just lit up when I asked her why she did not follow in her grandmother’s footsteps and do swimming instead of athletics, and she said, ‘When I found out that I could practise and train and learn techniques to get better at running, I just fell in love with it, and I love running.’ It is not much to ask, is it? She trained hard. She earned her place at the regional qualifiers, and when she got there, she lost, not because she was not fast enough but because she was forced to compete against a boy. When her dad questioned how that could possibly be fair, School Sport Victoria replied that no rules were broken, because that boy identifies as a girl. Emily is here today in the gallery – thank you so much for being here. She is extremely brave to stand up and say that it is not right, what happened to her, because as we know, every single other person who has stood up and said these things has been viciously attacked. But Emily, we are not going to let that happen to you. You will not be standing alone. For every girl in this country and in this state who has had her right to fair sport and privacy and dignity taken away from her – Emily, you are standing up for them, and we are going to be standing with you, because this terrible injustice is happening all over this country. It is my honour to stand with you. I think you are very brave, and I look forward to the next few years. We will get through it together.