Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week in Melbourne, Eurydice Dixon lost her life. Eurydice was walking home from work. The last message she sent to her friend was still on her phone: 'I'm almost home safe.' To Eurydice's family, friends, and loved ones, I extend my deepest condolences and sorrow. My thoughts, and Melbourne's thoughts, are with you. Eurydice lived in my electorate. She grew up, went to school, worked and was walking home through a park in the electorate of Melbourne. She was well known and much loved amongst her neighbours in Princes Hill and in Melbourne's performing arts community.

On Monday, over 10,000 Melburnians came together for a silent vigil by candlelight at Princes Park to mourn Eurydice. So many people in our community have walked or run or visited Princes Park so many times. So many of us feel grief. And, with grief, we feel anger. Eurydice's death is now before the courts, and we shouldn't comment on that. More broadly, women are being raped and murdered because we are failing to get serious about changing men's behaviour. How many women must die before we get serious about challenging men's violence and realising the right of everyone—everyone—to walk home in safety?

So far in 2018 around Australia, men have killed at least 30 women. Last year, Destroy The Joint counted 51 women who were killed by men. Most of these murders did not happen in a park and were not committed by strangers. They were at home, at the hands of violent partners. Last week in Sydney, 28-year-old Qi Yu went missing, and her housemate has been charged with her murder. Vastly more women are killed by men in family violence than the number of Australians who have lost their lives to terrorism, and yet our shelters and family violence lawyers are stretched thin and women are returning to violent partners because we fail to ensure that they have secure housing if they leave.

To address violence against women, we must address gender inequality. We must change the old, patriarchal modes of masculinity that see men as entitled—entitled to control, entitled to power and even entitled to blame women for men's violence. Following Eurydice's death, initial police comments urged women to take responsibility for their safety in the local area and to have 'situational awareness'. Well, my experience is that women are very aware of the situation. Men facing violence when out at night are never told to stay home or to have situational awareness.

Let me be very clear: there is nothing that we should ask women to do differently; it's men's actions that must change. Until men start respecting women more, we will see more devastating violence. We must change the way our boys think about women, and every boy should leave primary school and secondary school with respect for women ingrained in them. We must end violence against women, and the sexism and gender inequality that drive it. Men must start being accountable, and change our actions and the actions of other men.