Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we heard from the previous Labor member who spoke, when we think about violence against women, very often the conversation is about violence in the home. But it's not only in the home. I think there was one thing for me that was even more horrifying than viewing the video of the woman who was attacked in Parramatta—and it was a pretty confronting video for anyone who has seen it. She was sitting down, having coffee with friends in a cafe in Parramatta and someone came up to her, started talking to her and suddenly launched into punches—punching a pregnant woman. But the thing that was more horrifying for me than that was the number of women I spoke to afterward who were not surprised that that had happened. When you look at the 2019 report into Islamophobia, it cites 349 incidents—72 per cent of victims being women—reported in the period between 2016 and 2017. This is based on voluntary reporting, so it's a fair bet that it's only the tip of the iceberg. There have been verbal abuse, profanities, physical intimidation and death threats in public places, most often while shopping and most often made by Anglo or Celtic male perpetrators. We need to remember that part of dealing with violence against women and opposing it is for us to stand together better as a community in solidarity.