Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

There wouldn't be a single woman in this place and beyond who has not experienced that awful moment of fear when your spine turns to ice and your heart starts racing at a million miles an hour. It might've happened walking home, going to your car in an empty car park, heading down a corridor, in your hotel room or opening the door to your home. For women who are experiencing family violence, that fear is a constant. For one young woman, Eurydice Dixon, that moment turned to tragedy. Her death in a popular Melbourne park used by hundreds of people every day has shocked our state, our city and our nation. My heart goes out to her family and her friends, the people who love her. To see such a vibrant life full of possibility cut short in such a brutal way is unfathomable. We want our women and our girls to go bravely into the world, to embrace all that life has to offer and to be able to do anything, limited by nothing. None of us want to live with that awful moment of fear, but the reality is that we do. It is not all of us every single day, but we do on some days, in some places, with some people and in some moments. We don't want to live with that fear. We're exhausted by the struggle of it and we need help. Men have to step up. That is why there has been such an outpouring of grief, anger, commentary and analysis over this tragic death. She is one of us; she is all of us. Things have to change.

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