Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

To the women in this chamber, the senators: you have sons, husbands, brothers and uncles as well—people who are not domestic violence perpetrators. This is not what you should be pushing. Push right across the board and look at the problems that we have. If you look at our Family Court system, that's where a lot of problems are happening, because men—and some women—are absolutely frustrated that they don't have the opportunity to spend time with their children. They are denied that right. If you go to the guts of the problem, you will solve a lot of the problems. If you deal with the family law courts issues and then allow parents to see their children, you might stop half the problems that are going on. It is a very important issue.

This was my time to actually debate my bill on the Voice to Parliament, but then you actually denied me that right and took away my time, which a senator only has twice a year, to debate this. Therefore, you've taken away from that time. Why? It was because you didn't want to debate on the Voice to Parliament. But we are here discussing this because you didn't want it to go to the vote, so you denied me the right to put that up.

But you need to address domestic violence and acknowledge that it is also women that are murdering men. It is women that are responsible for a lot of the problems as well. You need to address the problem and ask why it is happening. Don't go around beating your chest here and saying, 'Well, how are you going to deal with it?' I've just told you: the biggest problem is coming from the family law courts. Start addressing those problems in the family law courts and let parents be parents to their children. You'll get rid of a lot of the angst that is happening. There are fathers who go through it; they're thrown out of their homes with their children. The fact is that there's nowhere for them to go. I've championed that fact and pushed for them. They must be looked after as well, so that they have refuge and can get the assistance and help that they need.

But it's all about women. Yes, men are the main perpetrators, but they are not the sole perpetrators. What about the woman who threw cooking oil all over her husband or the woman who stabbed her husband to death? Don't you care about that? What about the women who try to run over their husbands? Don't you care about that? They are still people who need fair representation across the board and who need to have it discussed in a fair and honest way.

Another thing that needs to be addressed is parental alienation; that is not being addressed either. Until we address that, you're going to have domestic violence. I'll be honest with you—I'll tell you what happened. My husband was giving me a hard time. I cooked dinner for him and said, 'Your dinner is ready.' He never came up for his dinner, so I took it down after saying it a third time. He was standing across the pool table, and I said, 'Your dinner is ready.' He said, 'I'll come up when I'm ready.' You know what? I said, 'You're ready now,' and threw that plate full of dinner across the table at him, and it smashed against the wall. So I admit to the fact that you can both have your agreements and disagreements and get into arguments and debates in the household. Don't make out that it's just purely men who are responsible for this, because women can instigate it and cause problems in the household as well.

The sheer fact is: don't put up ads that say men should get counselling to do with domestic violence. Women need to be told where to go too, because women are responsible and can instigate domestic violence in the household. But let's look at it fairly, right across the board, and treat everyone equally, rather than by what sex you are. It's alright to call a person a woman now when you're talking on this topic, but any other time there's no male or female. It's like we don't have a sex or an identity. You use the sex when it suits you.