Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I stood with thousands of women out the front of this house on the front lawns of Parliament House to demand action and to demand change—genuine, lasting change—for women in Australia. Across the country, tens of thousands of women joined the March 4 Justice rallies, including in my own electorate of Newcastle. Today the member for Sydney and I, and a number of Labor women, tabled a petition presented to us at the protest, signed by 135,000 people.

Yesterday was a day of sadness, frustration and anger, but it was also one of hope and commitment. This anger wasn't directionless. It wasn't without purpose. Women were very clear in their message back to this House, to this government and to this Prime Minister. Their message was strong and powerful. It was: 'Enough is enough. No more violence, no more sexual harassment, no more domestic abuse, no more bullying, no more coercive control, no more murders of woman by men who purport to love them.' It is not too much to ask. But the Prime Minister couldn't make it down to those lawns. He couldn't hear that message. He couldn't confront that reality. Shame on him.

You have been called out, Prime Minister. Your record is woeful. You're somebody who is more than an administrator in this nation; you are the Prime Minister—the leader. We're not looking for somebody who, as I think Janet Albrechtsen said in The Australian, regards themselves as the branch bank manager, looking for someone else to explain away all the hard things and leaving it to others to make all the tough decisions. That is not the role of a Prime Minister. You can't keep going to your wife because you lack some empathy gene to understand the need to take rape seriously. You say you're not a police commissioner, and that is true, but you are the leader of this nation, and 51 per cent of the nation are looking to you for leadership now.

It's not good enough to tell us that it's some triumph of democracy that we weren't shot when we were down on those lawns yesterday. That is not the message we're looking for here. Prime Minister, you failed to act on reports that have been sitting on your desk and your Attorney-General's desk for more than a year. You've failed to trend the violence against women in the direction we want to see. Now is the time to act. Stand up and be a Prime Minister.