Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to celebrate and make some comments about International Women's Day, and I'm pleased to follow our Attorney-General, a female in this government's cabinet. Women belong in the House and the Senate, they belong in the cabinet, they belong in the Attorney-General's chair, they belong on the court and on the bench, they belong in the C-suites, and they belong on the boards. In this country, women belong in every facet of our political, social and civic life.

Last week in my electorate, I was really pleased to host my annual Lalor International Women's Day High Tea. The event was an opportunity for some of our incredible local women to come together and celebrate our achievements as a community. I was joined by the federal member for Gorton, who shared her experience as a newly elected MP in the government. From community and sports organisations to teachers and students, from the arts and local schools to scout groups and the local CFA, women from all walks of life filled the room. I shared with them some of the achievements of our second-term, female-majority government, and, most importantly, I shared with them how we are delivering for women locally.

I talked about the new contraceptive and endometriosis medications that have been listed on the PBS, with scripts now just at $25, and I was pleased today to sit behind the Prime Minister as he called out a celebration around this government's actions to support women with endometriosis and terrible, terrible pelvic pain. The $800 million investment in women's health includes $49 million in new Medicare items, for longer specialist consultation to support additional services for women with complex gynaecological conditions, and new endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics like the one in Werribee.

As I do every year, I asked the community to nominate local women to be recognised for the work they do locally. This year's categories included community, business, arts, sports and our woman of the year. This year's recipients were extraordinary. They've created safe and inclusive spaces for women. They've created opportunity for growth. They've shared their love for the arts with others. They've dedicated countless hours to community sport and been tireless advocates for women's health. Their efforts have been pivotal and will continue to be for generations.

I want to celebrate Kritika Sharma, nominated for community; Deborah Dickinson, for business; Ngun Bor Chin, for arts, Angie Robinson, for sport; and    Chandrakantaben Patel, our woman of the year, who was involved in working with women in the Gujarati community to educate them about breast screening and whose work actually resulted in real, improved health outcomes for local women. It was a wonderful event, and I want to thank everybody for their attendance and for joining in in celebrating women.

Of course, this year the theme for International Women's Day was Balance the Scales. I'm proud to be a member of a party that has for 30 years acted directly to balance those scales in this place. I am proud to follow the previous member for Lalor, who was one of the first women elected in this place under our affirmative action and was joined by the first female attorney-general in this country, Nicola Roxon, who was elected the member for Gellibrand under that same program. It is amazing to see what that 30-year commitment to affirmative action has attained.

We are taking real action in women's health. On my social media pages, there's a bit of an attack happening: 'They're spending money on women's health.' Well, of course we are. For those who want to understand why, let me tell you this. Historically, women were excluded deliberately from the data that determined our health policies, from the data that determined treatments. Why? Because women were perceived to be aberrant—that is, not consistent enough. Unlike men, our temperature varies. Unlike men, our hormonal patterns vary. The wisdom of the day suggested that therefore, because of those inconsistencies, women should not be in the data. This led to some outrageous things. Women were not used in the data that determined the height of seatbelts in our cars, which has meant that small women are actually still vulnerable in a car accident because of the height of that seatbelt.

Since coming to government, by acting in good faith with 51 per cent of the community and ensuring that they are now included in the data going forward, through breast-screening processes and all sorts of ways, we've made sure that we're fixing that data to have women included, to inform the decisions we make in health.

I want to spend a little bit of time, too, celebrating as chair of Parliamentary Friends of Women in Sport and as chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Netball. I just want to share with people and with people in my community, particularly with mums and dads with daughters, what sport meant to me growing up as a girl. On the netball court, on the volleyball court, on the basketball court and in picking up a tennis racquet, sport gave me permission to be completely and utterly 100 per cent competitive. It gave me permission to be fearless. It gave me permission to be aggressive. It gave me permission to compete. This is something that all our girls deserve. Wherever you can find it, for your daughters, to give them the capacity to go after being their true selves in every facet of their personality, you should do so. If that's debating, then that's fantastic. If it's on the sporting field then, from my perspective, that's even better.

I want to give a shout-out to the local sporting community who are living Balance the Scales, including my football clubs who are actively recruiting young girls to play football so that we're going to be using our community assets like our football grounds—forever the domain of male athletes. We're going to have girls running around on those footy fields, making sure that 51 per cent of our community get to use the community assets that we've so heavily invested in across decades and decades. To my football clubs, to my soccer clubs, to my basketball clubs, to my netball clubs, to my hockey club, to everyone who is actively supporting the recruitment of girls into their teams and onto their pitches and their courts, I want to thank you for your efforts. I want to thank the volunteers who run our local sporting groups. I want to thank the women who are involved in those sporting groups for doing the work to balance those scales.

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