Matt Smith (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the motion marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I commend the member for Forrest and the member for Bonner for contributing to this motion. It is an area that is sometimes devoid of male voices, and it should not be. First, a statistic—we know that one in four women and one in 14 men have experienced violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15. This is a shocking statistic, and, sadly, one that we know to be very true.

My own electorate is obviously not immune. We are incredibly overrepresented in domestic violence. It is, unfortunately, something that I've been dragged into. A friend of mine, a work colleague, at the most dangerous time of her life, was preparing to leave her intimate partner, the father of her child. When it was time to go, he killed her and then he killed himself, leaving that child an orphan who has to live with that. It is a stain on our country and our community that that little girl will grow up knowing what her father was capable of and without her mother's love.

This happened during the campaign, and it has driven me to reach out to the families commission and to work with the member for Hunter to find a way through and find a way to stop this, because this is a man problem. This is men—primarily men; not always, but mostly men—inflicting damage on the people that we're meant to love, the people that we should protect and the people who should feel the safest around us. And the help's not coming. The manosphere, the internet, toxic masculinity—all these things are contributing to create a world that is less safe for our women and children, and tackling that is the purview of other men. Statistically, one in 11 men will admit to committing an act of physical violence on their partner, which means, if you have a cricket team, one of your teammates—statistically—is a perpetrator. That's a very sobering reality.

But it is not hopeless. I visit many women's and domestic violence shelters. I speak right across the Cape to rural and remote communities. And I know that the women are taking the lead. They want to help the men. At a recent forum of remote Indigenous domestic violence shelters, the women implored me: 'We have to help our men. They are broken. We can build them back up to be who they want to be, to be who they should be.' Nobody wants to behave like this. The perpetrators don't want to be this way. The victims certainly don't want it to be this way. So we have to find a way, together, to shine that light, to deliver that help. If you are one of those people who can't control themselves, who are having trouble with domestic violence, then seek help; find a way.

Let's be worthy of the people who love us. Let's be strong enough to stand up in the pub or the locker room or at work and say: 'This isn't acceptable. This is where you go to make that change. This is what your family deserves.' I'm not going through this again. I'm not going to get that phone call. I'm not going to walk into a place where somebody I spent time with used to be. I'm not going to go and help my friends and her friends pack up her office because she's not coming back to work on Monday. That's got to end. It's not acceptable anymore. And I am so relieved that other men stood to talk on this today, and I hope more men will stand up and follow their lead and take control of this once and for all and stop this. We are better, our nation is better, our men are better and our women deserve better.

See this speech in context