Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I joined many of my parliamentary colleagues and hundreds of thousands of women around the country in calling for change. What impressed me most about the rally yesterday was the passion and the rage that was displayed by all those marching around the country. The message was loud and clear: the system is broken, it is not serving women, and they have had enough. And who could blame them after some shocking revelations that we've heard over the past few weeks and the ongoing verbal abuse and total non-response from the Prime Minister and government members? All I can say is that it's appalling. This isn't about politics. It isn't about Labor or Liberal. It's about women. It's about listening to women and ensuring that violence against women is never tolerated or excused under any circumstances. It's also about ensuring that if abuse happens women can report and speak about it with confidence, without fear or repercussions, knowing they will be supported, knowing that there are mechanisms in place to hear their voice and support them. We've tragically learned in these past weeks that this isn't the case. Women are saying it, and they said it yesterday loud and clear: enough is enough. What we saw yesterday reminded me of the strength and power for change that can be generated by women.

As a South Australian from Adelaide, I'm very proud of the role that one of our homegrown women played in getting women the vote and getting women the rights to a whole range of things. I'm talking, of course, of Muriel Matters, a courageous, tireless activist for women's rights. Muriel was born in my electorate, in the suburb of Bowden, in 1877. At the time of her birth, South Australia was one of the most progressive places in the world. In 1861, women were granted the vote in municipal elections, and in 1894, were granted the vote in South Australia and the right to stand for the South Australian parliament, making it the first place in Australia and the second place in the entire world to grant women the vote. This gives you an idea of the type of place that South Australia was and the progressive politics that it had.

In this environment, Muriel went on to play a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement in the UK. One of her acts was to shower King Edward VII in pamphlets from one of those balloons overhead in the king's parade when they were opening the British Houses of Parliament. The pamphlets were printed with the words, 'Votes For Women'. What a bold move at the time. It made news all around the world back then and ensured that it pushed the issue for the women's vote internationally. Muriel also famously chained herself to the grille of the Ladies' Gallery in the British House of Commons. The grille was designed—listen to this—to obscure women's view of the parliamentary debates, standing as a symbol of the oppression that women had to put up with in a male dominated society. It was Muriel's conviction that the grille should be removed. While attached to the grille, Muriel, by a legal technicality, was judged to be on the floor of parliament and thus the words spoken by her that day are still considered to be the first words delivered by a woman in the House of Commons, and therefore made the records of Hansard.

I talk about Muriel Matters not only because she represents the power of women to achieve change but also because she reminds us of how hard women have had to fight to have their voices heard in places like our parliaments around the world. That's what women were trying to achieve yesteryear, and yet this government refuses to listen. It refuses to join Australian women in solidarity and agree to work with them to ensure things change. It's horrendous that one in every three Australian women has experienced physical or sexual violence and that we hear of one murder per week, approximately. I must say I'm listening, and it's time this government does the same. (Time expired)