Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the opposition I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks and we associate ourselves with them. The work of the White Ribbon Foundation is of enormous importance and I join the Prime Minister in calling on all men, in this House and elsewhere, to take that oath and above all to recognise that we will only stamp out violence against women by not pretending that it is a private matter. That phrase ‘I don’t want to get involved’ or ‘It’s just domestic, it’s private, it has got nothing to do with me,’ that allows violence against women and children to go undetected, undisturbed, unpunished. We have to lead by example.

I ask every member in this House just to reflect on this: how often do you see men who treat women in a demeaning way or a violent way have learnt those habits from their own fathers? The reality is that when we as fathers treat women with disrespect, let alone with violence, it is the bad lesson that our children learn, and above all our sons learn. So this is a responsibility for all of us. I cannot commend the work of the White Ribbon Foundation enough. It does great work. And the Prime Minister, who is given to the occasional partisan remark from time to time, today paid respect and acknowledged the work of the coalition government when we were in government in taking action to combat violence against women. This is surely something that unites everybody in this House and should unite all Australians. The only response to violence against women is to stamp it out.

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