Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I consider myself very lucky. During my younger years, and more particularly during my teenage years, my father would say to me quite often, 'You always treat women with respect. Women are not objects, and you never raise a hand to a woman.' Remarkably, yesterday I was sitting at lunch with my 13-year-old boy, who's going on 18, and I heard myself saying to him, 'You must respect women. Women are not objects, and you never raise a hand to a woman.' And it starts at home. You can have all the funding in the world—and we have to have all the funding in the world for this very issue—but respect for women starts at home. I'll do the same with my boys through their teenage years and I hope, just like my father, that they turn out to be gentlemen.

As a police officer in a country town for a number of years, I saw domestic violence firsthand and I saw it at its ugliest. However, what I also saw were victims who had the strength and courage to report it, to stand up to those monsters, those bullies, because the fear of that was quite often more than the fear that they were experiencing when they were being assaulted. The fear was: 'What am I going to do if I can't support the kids? What will happen if I report this? What will happen if I go to court?' It's the fear of the unknown. But that courage for them to stand up was remarkable as was the courage, dedication and determination of those working in domestic violence services who were quite often people who had suffered at the hands of a male partner. They were there for those victims when they needed it. They were there 24/7 providing those services, providing advice, providing accommodation often at their own expense.

I thank those people who are strong enough, those women who are strong enough, to stand up and report the violence. I thank those people who work in the services providing that support for the victims and I thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this motion today to acknowledge the recent International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I spent the day in Coffs Harbour and was part of the Coffs Harbour SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign. Domestic violence is everybody's business and, as I said, it starts at home. Our community threw its full support behind the SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign that day.

We, as a government, have committed to ending and preventing violence against women and their children and we'll continue to work with the states and territories and communities to identify how to work towards this important goal. It is completely unacceptable that one in four women experience violence by an intimate partner and this year, on average, one woman has died each week. It is preventable, and we need to work together to end domestic violence.

I helped launch the Coffs Coast SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign on 24 November, the day before International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I want to mention all the stakeholders. All the members in the House know that campaigns are always more successful when they are grassroots campaigns—and this certainly was. The 16-day Coffs Coast SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE campaign was led by NSW Police and local domestic and family violence specialist services such as Warrina. It had the support of the Coffs Coast Committee against Domestic and Family Violence. It also had support from the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council. On that day, as individuals and as organisations, we all agreed to call out domestic and family violence. We stood as a community and resolutely said no. I thank them for their efforts.

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