Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (09:49): The theme for this Sunday’s International Women’s Day is ‘Balance the Scales’. This speaks to the need for all women, girls and gender-diverse people to be safe and heard and have the freedom to shape their own lives, but too often our laws, policies and social systems tip the scales against them. The lack of willingness to address this imbalance, even when we know exactly what needs to change, illustrates how broken our systems are.

A clear example of this is the Victorian government’s failure to take any meaningful steps to better regulate the supply of alcohol, particularly online sales and marketing, despite well-established links to gender-based violence. Preventing gender-based violence requires many changes, some very complex and not easy for governments to implement, but stronger regulation of alcohol sales and marketing is low-hanging fruit. It is readily actionable by governments and would make a real difference, yet in Victoria we see no action on this front. Why? When it comes to gender-based violence the Allan Labor government is more talk than action. The interests of industries like big alcohol are apparently more important to them than the lives and wellbeing of women, children and gender-diverse people who experience alcohol-fuelled violence. It is time to rebalance the scales, and we could start with stronger regulation of online alcohol sales.