Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this constituency statement, I present this petition to the House. The petition has been presented to the Standing Committee on Petitions and certified as being in accordance with the standing orders.

The petition read as follows—

To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives

This petition of the multicultural communities of Victoria draws to the attention of the House: Our immense concern about the devastating effects that violence against women and children in their homes is having on our communities.

Family violence does not discriminate on the basis of geography, ethnicity or culture. It affects all of our communities.

We the undersigned wish to advise the House that we believe that all forms of family violence are unacceptable. As a society family violence should never be tolerated or ignored and perpetrators should be held accountable for their actions.

Victims of family violence should be better protected from abuse, intervention orders respected and if breached; appropriate and timely action should be taken.

We therefore ask the House to: Take action to review the use and effectiveness of intervention orders, whether the intervention orders available to the courts are adequate to provide protection for victims of family violence and whether the responses to breaches of intervention orders are appropriate.

from 1,001 citizens

Petition received.

The petition has been commissioned by members of multicultural communities in Victoria and signed by more than 1,000 people. They wish to draw the attention of the House to their concerns about the devastating impacts that family violence and violence against women and children is having in Australian society. They asked the House to take action to review the use and effectiveness of intervention orders, whether they are able to effectively provide protection for victims of family violence and if responses to breaches of those intervention orders are currently appropriate. We know that people are all too willing to break intervention orders at present, and their effectiveness must be reviewed to ensure that we keep women and their children safe.

Family violence does not affect multicultural communities more than others. The scourge of family violence in Australia transcends ethnicity, culture, geography and economic background; however, women in multicultural communities can be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of family violence, as they can be more isolated in their community and lack access to the support networks available to other women. Multicultural communities in Victoria want to make their voices heard to say that family violence should never be condoned, legitimised, underemphasised or dismissed.

Yesterday was White Ribbon Day, and I watched social media light up as thousands of people posted their pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence towards women. The Leader of the Opposition announced Labor's plan to make domestic and family violence leave a universal workplace right. In Victoria we saw the launch of Victoria Against Violence, a 16-day event to raise awareness of what partners, friends, family members, businesses, organisations and people in positions of power can do to prevent family violence. Things are changing—we are seeing movement—but they are still moving too slowly. More than one woman has been killed each week in Australia by a partner or a former partner and, despite the clear movement in the community, many continue to blame the victims.

This petition was the result of dozens of dedicated volunteers attending festivals, aged-care centres, sports events and religious gatherings and sharing this message. One of them described it as 'a painful eye-opener'. While they were able to gather over 1,000 signatures, many more dismissed out of hand their attempts to highlight this issue. Negative attitudes persist, and on numerous occasions they were confronted with responses that verged on anger, with people telling them that women should learn to be quiet, that it is their fault and that women get men upset.

We have a long way to go in curbing this scourge in our society, but campaigns like this one are changing people's perceptions around power, inequality and family violence. The people who prepared this petition collectively spent hundreds of hours gathering these signatures. It is a pleasure for me to spend but a few minutes in this chamber to present their petition to the House.