Wednesday, 31 July 2024

Matters of public importance

Women’s health

The SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Northcote proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house recognises that the Allan Labor government is prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and funding it deserves.

Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (16:01): I am delighted to rise to lead the debate on this incredibly important matter of public importance, which asks that the house recognise that the Allan Labor government is prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and funding it deserves. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health, it has been my absolute honour to work alongside our utterly determined Minister for Health and under the outstanding leadership of Victoria’s Premier on a policy area that means so much to me and to so many others.

Indeed it does feel as though women’s health is at a turning point as women’s and girls’ voices right across our state have themselves elevated the public discourse and demanded change. It is an extraordinary thing to think that we are now in a time when our Premier can share her personal story of endometriosis. Just consider how unheard of that would have been a decade or two ago and consider the power of that voice being heard by others and the ability for stories like this to bring women’s health out of the shadows.

Since we embarked on this work we have been uncovering layer after layer of a complex picture. It is a picture that depicts centuries of stigma and bias which have compounded an embedded disadvantage for women in our society and in societies right across the world. Just as we see these inequalities play out in economic and social spheres, we see them replicated in health outcomes for women. Part of it is bound up in the vexed relationship societies have had with women’s bodies for the longest time, seeing them as mysterious, even dangerous, and our ability to create life as a threat, and that danger element then translating into attempts over history to subdue and control women and their bodies. Think about the history of so-called hysteria, a proclaimed disease basically outlining the symptoms of normal female sexuality, yet women were forced into asylums and in some cases had to undergo surgical hysterectomies.

These sorts of horrors are thankfully behind us, but the hang-ups, the stigma and the gaps in medical knowledge about women’s bodies unfortunately remain. That destructive and damaging experience of being dismissed, gaslighted and misunderstood has echoed across forum after forum after forum that I have attended as part of our Victorian inquiry into women’s pain, an inquiry that has now received over 12,000 survey and submission responses from women and girls across our state – an extraordinary response to a survey – and I thank each and every one of these Victorians for lending their voice to our work to improve women’s health care. From Geelong to Monbulk to Glen Waverley to Northcote, rooms of women and girls have reverberated with the grief and pain and frustration that has been felt for too long. It is visceral: story after story of women sharing their experiences of chronic pain, about persistent migraines, about debilitating endometriosis, about birth trauma, about pain during the menstrual cycle, about arthritis or about conditions like fibromyalgia, and story after story of women having to strategise before they go to their GP lest they be dismissed or told they are simply depressed or viewed with suspicion as though they are just there for the drugs, as though being there for the drugs is a bad thing when you are in pain.

I hear women feeling under pressure to push through to meet work and caring responsibilities; women struggling through shifts in excruciating pain, unable to take time off to navigate the system and not willing to when their experience has given them little hope that that system will respond. I hear about the shame and the loneliness and the isolation – of low energy levels, of not wanting to leave home and of friendships that slip away, relationships that deteriorate, opportunities that pass by. As much as there is solidarity in the sharing of those experiences and the commonality of them, there is also anger and determination and, ultimately, hope – hope that in this golden moment, with our collective voices drawing public attention, with the ambition of our government and with dedicated funding, we can and will change things for the better. It is that hope that each of us as parliamentarians is accountable to, an accountability that the Premier, the minister and I take very seriously. It is why we will use every moment that we have to drive and embed reforms in women’s health and why our Labor government is giving it the focus and funding that it deserves, because what this goes to is the quality of life for generations of women and girls.

The Allan Labor government has invested $153 million as a first step to transform the way women’s health is treated in our state. This investment means that over the coming years we will open 20 ‍women’s health clinics so that women can have access to comprehensive, affordable care. The first tranche of five clinic locations was announced in April this year: at the Northern Hospital, Epping; the Royal Women’s Hospital; the Frankston Hospital; Barwon Health, Geelong; and the Ballarat Base Hospital. These multidisciplinary clinics will allow women that safe, affirming space to see specialists like gynaecologists, urologists, specialist nurses and allied health professionals. They will cover a whole gamut of conditions, like endometriosis and pelvic pain, polycystic ovary syndrome, perimenopause and menopause.

One of the things that we know for sure is that health inequality is compounded by intersectional factors, and in a context where non-Indigenous women live on average eight years longer than Indigenous women, it is extremely important that First Nations voices form a core part of our statewide efforts, which is why in addition to the 20 women’s health clinics we are also working with Aboriginal health organisations to deliver a dedicated Aboriginal women’s health clinic and have the guiding expertise of Jill Gallagher, who is also on our women’s health advisory council.

To make sure our investment in health equity reaches right across the state, we are also establishing an additional mobile clinic to help us serve regional and rural areas, because we want to ensure that no matter where they live, Victorian women have access to quality care. At the same time as setting up the clinics, we are also expanding locations for our sexual and reproductive health hubs from 11 to 20. The final six of these were announced this month, with new locations to open in Kyneton, Melton, Wyndham Vale, Broadmeadows, Ararat and Horsham. These hubs provide access to contraception, medical abortion and referrals for surgical abortion as well as sexual health, testing and treatment. They have been immensely successful, and at Peninsula Health, where there is one, the team, led by Dr Nisha Khot, are also pioneering the use of the green whistle for patients undergoing IUD procedures. The green whistle is common in emergency settings and in sporting events. It is an analgesic that is inhaled, and giving it to women means more women being made comfortable during IUD insertion. It encourages the uptake of this incredibly effective, long-acting, reversible contraception.

There is a lot more that we are doing as part of our women’s health reforms. I have got 6 minutes left, so please excuse me for flying through this a little bit, but I do want to put a few things on the record. We are doubling the number of laparoscopies and related surgeries, which are part of the diagnostic toolkit for identifying endometriosis. New health and wellbeing support groups are being funded specifically for women, because no-one should have to go through the challenges of chronic disease or menopause alone. Indeed this is something that came out really strongly in the women’s health breakfast that I hosted with the Premier in Northcote last week. Women described feeling like they had no-one they could talk to, like they were letting their families and friends down when they were unwell, and the impact that that then had on their mental health. As women we yearn for those secure and supportive spaces to openly discuss our health journeys, access support, connect with our communities and seek guidance. It is often remarked that modernity has meant the loss of our villages, and for women this loss is profound. There is so much power in sharing knowledge and experience amongst one another. As an example, in my local electorate I am lucky enough to have Women’s Health in the North just down from my office, and as part of their women’s health and wellbeing package they are now able to deliver a face-to-face support group for people with experiences of abortion, something that has had a huge amount of stigma surrounding it. Women are now able to come together and talk about that.

A strong health workforce is vital to delivering a better healthcare system for women. Just this week our government launched the third round of applications for free nursing and midwifery courses, part of a package that will deliver scholarships to more than 10,000 students. We are also providing more than 175 scholarships specifically to upskill women’s health specialists in areas like IUD insertion, sexual and reproductive health, pelvic physio training, menopause and PCOS. The scholarships include funding to promote cultural safety and remove existing barriers for First Nations women, women from migrant and refugee backgrounds and LGBTIQA+ communities. It is a key part of ensuring our new clinics have highly skilled practitioners giving women and girls the care they deserve.

However, even with trained specialists there are still significant gaps in our understanding of women’s health issues and effective life-saving treatments, and that is a symptom of generations of women’s exclusion from medical research. As uncomfortable as it is, the male body and male experiences are still overwhelmingly cast as the default in everything from discovery research to clinical trials, to drug development, to anatomical models, to diagnostic tools and to treatment in emergency. This exclusion has serious consequences for women’s health, borne out starkly in the statistics and anecdotally in the thousands of women now lending their voices to the push for medical equality. We know that chronic pain affects a higher proportion of girls and women than men around the world, yet women are less likely to receive treatment. We know that even when treatment is received, women are more likely than men to experience adverse reactions to many medications because they are not trialled on them. That means they are more likely to stop their treatment. That means more women in pain for longer. To address the gender gap in medical research and grow our knowledge about conditions that impact women we are supporting the establishment of a women’s health research institute here in Victoria. This is an exciting part of the reform package and our work towards health equity and a true enabler to enhancing our understanding of women’s bodies.

This Labor government has a proven track record when it comes to improving outcomes for women and girls. Whether that is opening Victoria’s first clinic focusing on women’s heart health or our statewide sexual and reproductive health line 1800 My Options, whether it is legislating safe access zones around abortion clinics or our groundbreaking family violence reforms, whether it is supporting key initiatives like free kinder or the expansion of our early parenting centres or building more female-friendly facilities at sports clubs across the state, we are a party that sees women, that hears women and that delivers policy to make women’s lives safer, healthier and more equal.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending the Victorian Pelvic Pain Symposium, the first of its kind. It brought together experts, academics, researchers and lived experience advocates to share expertise, innovation and networks, all with a focus on delivering better patient-centred care for women living with pelvic pain. It was incredibly elevating and edifying to have so many experts in the room with a passion and determination for change.

As we continue to invest in women’s health, we are not just changing policies, we are changing lives. We are breaking down barriers, we are addressing inequalities and we are ensuring that every woman and girl in Victoria has access to the care and support she deserves. This is just the beginning of our transformative journey towards a more inclusive and responsive healthcare system. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this vital work, in particular the thousands who submitted to the inquiry. I thank the minister and the Premier for their leadership along with our hardworking advisers and public servants. I look forward to continuing to work together to build a healthcare system that is as dynamic as the women it serves.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:16): I rise to speak on the government’s matter of public importance in which the Allan Labor government claims it is prioritising women’s health and giving health the focus and funding it deserves. This is a government that likes to crow about the things it does but does not do the work required to deliver beyond the headlines. For a decade now we have been hearing from a government who says it is concerned about the high rates of family violence in our community, a government that believes in more investment in better health outcomes for women and a government that says it will provide suitable housing for women fleeing situations of family violence – all very honourable objectives; that much is true. However, on the ground we are not seeing better outcomes for women, and we are certainly not seeing a government making good on the things they promised to do.

Just one example from my electorate is how a young woman was treated when she approached the Labor government with an idea to assist women in an area of health in which there is an obvious gap, and she recently pointed that out to me when we met. Sarah Wallace is a remarkable young woman who, along with her husband Steven, co-founded the Wish Collective. This is an initiative to support people trying to conceive and to access assisted fertility technologies and recovering from surgeries and loss from miscarriage. Sarah and Steve became acutely aware of the mental, emotional, physical and financial toll that is often involved with trying to conceive and how isolating the feelings can be.

I have since had conversations with other women, since Sarah and I met, who have talked to me about their experience when they have been going through a miscarriage. As a nurse I have had this experience many times from a medical perspective, but it was described to me by the women who experienced the miscarriages. They said to me that they had done the pregnancy test, they were excited, they were having a baby. Yet when they start bleeding and they present to the hospital the words ‘baby’ and ‘child’ are no longer used, and suddenly we start speaking in medical terms about ‘evacuating the uterus’, ‘doing a D and C’ and ‘removing the products of conception’. That is exactly how we speak. It was identified to me by some of the women that they feel like they have failed. They feel like it is their fault, and nobody actually talks to them about the grief and the loss. Often they just to the GP, into hospital and home. They have lost a child, and that is not really understood.

It really became apparent to me that what Sarah was putting together, this project, was a local initiative to help women when they present either to their doctor or to the hospital. They get a kit, and they know there are people around who they can talk to and share their grief with. Just like the many support groups we have for different conditions – cancer support groups – that is the sort of thing she has started. She went to speak to the local member, Jacinta Ermacora, the Labor member of Parliament for Western Victoria, and she simply was dismissed. I was really disappointed because this is what Labor are saying that they actually want to achieve – prioritising women. So I urge the member for Western Victoria to reconsider meeting with Sarah and give her the respect she deserves to be heard. I actually think it is a wonderful project and very much support this for Sarah.

We hear a lot of words in this place from those opposite and in press release after press release after press release about being the party for women. But we know those words ring hollow. Just contrast, for instance, everything Labor say about their progressive agenda for women with what they actually do in practice. Take the recent state budget, for instance, where we are seeing the results of a decade of financial mismanagement under Labor. Family violence service delivery – cut in the May budget by $29 million. Women’s policy – a $3 million cut. Labor continues to announce things and then cut them. There is no better example than before the last election, when Labor announced public IVF services so all people could afford to have assistance with getting pregnant. But what did they announce in this budget just gone? Cuts. Cuts to the IVF public services – $42 million in cuts. So they announce it, then they cut it. So there are no outcomes for people who are really trying to access this palaver that this Labor government say they are trying to assist women with.

But there are more cuts. There are cuts to women’s public hospitals. Almost 29 per cent of women in public hospitals feel they are not involved as much as they want to be. These cuts actually make people struggle and suffer. But Labor continually say they care about women – that they care about women in situations of family violence. They advertise on the television that women will be supported and looked after. But how many women come into your offices like they do mine and say, ‘I’ve left a very abusive situation and now I thought I’d be supported, but I can’t get anywhere to stay. There are no houses available. I’m sleeping in my car with my children.’ How many times are you hearing that, because I am certainly hearing that a lot.

What we were told by the government – their own figures say that vulnerable people like a woman who has left a family violence situation should be able to access a home within eight months. But their own statistics show us that it is actually 2½ years. I am going to re-say that: 2½ years before they can get somewhere to settle their children in a home. Sleeping in a car, sleeping in temporary accommodation, not accessing consistent schooling for their children – this is appalling. Yet this is a government that says they are investing in housing. They announced that they would produce 80,000 ‍homes a year over the next 10 years, a total of 800,000. They are already failing. They did not even reach 55,000 homes last year. They could not even reach the first milestone of the first year of the target they set. They failed. Yet their own data reveals, as I say, it is 2½ years before a woman fleeing violence can actually get some supports.

Labor cut funding from family violence at a time when safety is a top concern for women. It was only a few months ago, in April, that the Premier marched with more than 10,000 Victorians in Melbourne against gender-based violence against women – a noble goal. This is the Premier that for the last 10 ‍years has had the levers and had the instruments that would give the police the support they are looking for so that women whose ex-partners break intervention orders could actually be sanctioned. The police beg for these things and the minister marches with the women but does nothing, and the intervention orders continue to be broken and the women live in fear. The Premier has had 10 years to be able to do something about this. The community expects more than just headlines. Women are still living in fear, and real investment and commitment are what is needed.

We talk about the investment in women’s pain. Absolutely I endorse that. Endometriosis is a very debilitating condition. For lots of women work time is lost. A hormonal migraine – terribly debilitating. So much more can be done and should be done. But in my electorate a woman cannot even get a doctor’s appointment to be able to get the medication for managing the pain, let alone be able to access one of the women’s clinics that are going to come in a point in time – very similar to the mental health beds that are going to come in a point in time and many other promises that Labor do not deliver on.

The Labor sisterhood love to come in here and attack Liberal members – including me – about support for women. Then we find out how Labor women rallied around John Setka, a man who pled guilty to harassing his then wife, breaching court orders and making dozens of shocking, abusive and threatening text messages and calls.

Perhaps the members for Thomastown and Kororoit can come out of hiding and explain why they stand with perpetrators of domestic violence, because what they say in this chamber is very different to the support they showed to a convicted wife abuser. This man’s appalling behaviour was laid bare for all to see, and these great Labor sisters gave him a pat on the back. Will the Premier explain why she will not take action against those who continue to stand with culprits of domestic violence, exposing Labor’s outright hypocrisy? We have two members of their own party sitting in the crossbench who are accused of persistent and inappropriate behaviour, as has been reported. They have just shifted. Meanwhile, Labor members put their heads in the sand and carry on like there is nothing to see here, just walk on by and pretend it is not happening. They have just shifted. Meanwhile, they stick their heads in the sand and continue like there is nothing to see here.

But it is not just what they do in defence of violent men in their ranks. It is also how they go after their own the moment they step out of line and stand up for themselves. Ask yourself why Kaushaliya Vaghela is no longer a member of Parliament, stating that she was bullied out. Ask yourself why the late Jane Garrett was bullied out of cabinet by the former Premier and Peter Marshall, who threatened to put an axe in her head. The reason is that there is a gangster culture at the heart of this government where women are stood over and knocked aside the moment they stand up for themselves. Let us not forget the way minister Jenny Mikakos was made a scapegoat for this government’s hotel quarantine debacle. I could go on and on about the hypocrisy of this government saying they care about women. They are not getting support, because this is not backed up by the actions on the ground of the women.

Another area of concern that comes to my office very frequently, where Labor have not put in the efforts that are required, is child care. If we truly say we care about women, a government which has been in power for 10 years would have done the work to plan, train and build so that we have got the ability to look after children and women can get back to work. They want to work and they need to work to manage the increased cost of living and to manage the mortgages that have gone up and up because of the mismanagement of Labor and the financial mismanagement of Labor. But this is a government that has not planned ahead, and this is why in my electorate and many electorates, particularly around the regions, we cannot get child care and we cannot find places for children to get to kinder. The government makes big announcements like, ‘Let’s have free kinder,’ which is a great and honourable task, but if you have not done the planning and all you have done is increase the demand but not address the supply, you have actually got families really in strife because they cannot find the care they need for their children. This is a government that say they are investing in health to support women. But what do we do? We kick them out of hospital the minute they have had their babies, not support them and care for them.

A member interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: It is pretty much within the first 24 hours. New mums are going home unsupported. No wonder we are seeing unplanned readmissions within 28 days of discharge, partly caused by mothers being too quickly forced out of hospital. Families are really struggling. We are seeing the family unit really under a lot of pressure. What we should be doing is putting more support around young families, supporting breastfeeding and supporting child care so that mums and dads can really get to support their families.

But this is a government, as I said, that keeps spinning the wheels of spin. They put out the headlines; they announce funding such as the IVF example just before the last election, 2022, yet in this budget we see them actually cut the funding. This is a government who are so insincere, and the hypocrisy is extraordinary. In my electorate I have the women very, very mobilised at the moment, because they are hearing about the health cuts and the mergers. They are hearing it from board members who are saying they cannot speak, and they are asking them to speak up on their behalf. Right now as I speak, there are women in my electorate organising a rally to say to this government, ‘We will not tolerate the health cuts and we will not be subjected to the mergers. We need our own voices on our boards in our smaller hospitals and our larger hospitals, and we don’t need to be governed out of Geelong. We don’t need to be driving down potholed roads to be having procedures that we should be able to have in our own electorate.’ That rally will be on 16 August, and I endorse the work of the community to stand up.

They asked me to ask the minister, which I did in the house in May, whether these mergers are going to affect South West Healthcare or going to affect Timboon or going to affect Port Fairy or going to affect Heywood or Portland, but the minister has been silent. I have asked the minister to the rally, and I stand here and ask member for Western Victoria Jacinta Ermacora and any other Labor ministers who want to come along or members of Parliament who want to come along and be honest with our community. Be honest about the cuts you are making, because you have got so much mismanagement of your budget here in Victoria that you are actually going to attack health. You are going to attack the nurses –

The SPEAKER: The member for South-West Coast will refrain from using the word ‘you’.

Roma BRITNELL: Sorry, through the Chair. We will make sure that our nurses are supported and our doctors are supported and more investment is made in health rather than less. I do not even understand the rationale behind cutting health care after a pandemic, after putting the nurses and putting all the health professionals, whether it is occupational therapists, under stress. All the health professionals have done an extraordinary job. This government want to pretend they are supporting them but at the same time are cutting the services that they need to deliver to be able to do the job they care so very much about for their community.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (16:31): I feel that I must remind the member for South-West Coast that Book Week is not for another few weeks and the fiction and the fantasy are not required. I am here for the non-fiction. I do prefer non-fiction, so I would like to explain how and why what the member opposite said is pure fiction. She repeated the mistruth that we have cut $29 million from family violence, when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact we have now reached over $4 billion investment with the 2024–25 budget – $4 billion. I think that the issue is that those opposite are too busy asking ‘What is a woman?’ to ask what women want and need, and that is something that this government has done.

That is why, on the topics raised by the member opposite, I am happy to remind her that we held the nation’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence, we have implemented all 227 recommendations of the royal commission and we have increased the family violence specialist workforce fivefold since 2015 – five times the number of family violence workers since we have been in government. In fact I state again: $4 billion. There has been the opening of the Orange Door hubs. I have had the pleasure of visiting them and seeing the great work that they do. There is the Dhelk Dja partnership with First Nations Victorians, which is so important for Aboriginal families, keeping them together and keeping them whole and healthy. And we have recently had the core and cluster refuges ‍– 15 of them – rebuilt. So when the member opposite says that we are not doing anything, I think it is very clear that we are very busy and very committed to the true and hard work of supporting women in Victoria who have experienced family violence, and I do not think bringing fiction to this place helps anyone at all.

A further fiction that was repeated by the member for South-West Coast was that we cut IVF services in the last budget, which also is not true. $120 million has been funded and delivered over five years, and in fact we have delivered an additional $2 million for the egg and sperm bank in the most recent budget. Fiction is convenient, but facts are what stand.

I am not going to go on to the other topics that she mentioned, doctors appointments and child care, because as we know they are federal responsibilities. But this government has done more than its fair share of heavy lifting to get people in front of a doctor and to get kids into free kinder and into child care, and I really will not countenance any disrespect for our record there, especially when those opposite’s federal partners performed so abysmally in that space over such a long time.

I did not know I was going to be talking about that until the member was on her feet, and I would like to turn now to what we have raised today as being a matter of public importance, and that is around women’s health and our funding for women’s health. I held a women’s pain community forum in the electorate of Yan Yean, and I would like to share some stories that were shared in that space. It is pretty amazing. I put an ad on Facebook saying, ‘Do you experience chronic pain? Would you like to discuss women’s health?’ People saw an ad on Facebook and they came. It is a big step for someone to take, and that shows what an important issue it is to them.

I had one woman at the door, Kelly, and she said to me as I was signing her in, ‘I’ve never been to one of these before’, and I said, ‘Well, I’ve never run one before, so we’re on the same footing here.’ Kelly went on to share a story with the women that gathered about the extreme pain that she experiences. She was speaking about her GP, one of the few bulk-billing GPs around, who does not give her pain medication and who will not give her pain medication, except for one time when he did. When her husband came to the appointment and said, ‘It’s true; she really is in a lot of pain’, then he prescribed the medication. We know, sadly, that that is borne out in the data. We know that women are more likely to be prescribed help when the husband is present in the consultation.

We also heard from Bethany. Bethany is an amazing young woman in my community, and I would like to read you some of the words that she has shared with me previously. She says:

The first GP I visited at 16 years old told me it was ‘period pain and you’re to young to have endo,’ gave me the pill and told me to go on my way. Mum insisted that this wasn’t the case and took me to see a different GP. She really listened and I was referred to see a gynaecologist. After laparoscopic surgery, I was diagnosed with stage 3 endometriosis, adenomyosis and PCOS at 17 years old. Fast forward to the start of last year, I was back in agonising pain and missing work, as well as my first year of uni due to the chronic pain. This meant multiple hospital visits, functioning off pain killers and just hoping it would stop. This lead me to my second surgery last week.

This is a first-year uni student:

This has also resulted in now talking about egg freezing, if I’ll have children and the fact that one day I will most likely need a early hysterectomy.

So women are sharing the most serious and life-altering experiences with each other in these safe spaces. I was so happy then to be able to share with the women present that at the Northern we are having a women’s health clinic open. One of the issues the women raised was cost and the time going between different specialists. The women’s health clinic at the Northern Hospital will have gynaecologists, urologists and allied health under one roof, so it is not the case of having to go and pay a specialist gynaecologist, and then they send you to the urologist, and then you have to get a test over here, and then you go back over there – but all together under one roof, which is fantastic.

I would also like to give a shout-out to Kym Veale, who came along to the women’s health forum. She is a local physiotherapist who specialises in women’s physio. She has the Womankind Physiotherapy there, because women often need additional support after childbirth or due to other issues, and she provides care for the women in our community, and I thank her for that.

The image that came to my mind immediately when the member for South-West Coast said that we are not doing anything was Dr Jhelum Paralikar’s face. I met her at the sexual and reproductive health hub in South Morang. I was there with the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health, the member for Northcote, who spoke so beautifully before, and the member for Mill Park. Dr Paralikar leads the sexual and reproductive health hub there with DPV Health, funded by our government. What struck me about her was her grace and her strength but also how straightforward she was and how she spoke really plainly, and I thought, ‘If I needed help, you’d be just the sort of woman that I would want help from.’

So Dr Jhelum Paralikar is doing something, the Premier is doing something and this government is doing something, and we will not take lectures from those opposite, because this is a government that listens to women, that knows women and that is made up of women. In fact just this morning at women’s caucus at the table that we had there were probably more that were able to come along to the breakfast than they have had in their party for their whole existence, and that was just who could make it this morning.

People know when someone is truly listening, and they know when someone is truly acting. The proof is in the pudding. We will continue to work hard for women in Victoria so that they get the health care they deserve.

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (16:41): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the member for Northcote’s matter of public importance today, although I wholeheartedly disagree with her premise and believe it is completely inappropriate following today’s behaviour. After witnessing the behaviour of the Premier earlier today and her willingness to stand with a former Labor MP who allegedly mistreated women and staff, this matter of public importance is offensive towards every Victorian woman. This follows Labor enabling the misogynistic and thuggish behaviour of the CFMEU and Labor MPs offering personal support towards someone convicted of domestic violence offences. So let us call this what it is – an attempt to win female votes while at the same time treating women like ignorant fools who are not aware of the harm this government has caused to them and their families.

When it comes to health care it is difficult to understand the delusion that this government shows. Simply put, health care in our state is in trouble, and there is no ignoring that. It is only getting worse. If we just look at women’s health, the situation is not better. Under this government we have seen public IVF services and hospital budgets slashed. We have seen a blatant lack of support for child and maternal health services, particularly in our regional communities. This government is content to leave Victorian women to languish on waitlists for vital surgeries and is forcing hospital mergers that are set to have a significant impact on the ability for people to access health care locally. This is a government hell-bent on destroying what was once heralded as one of the best healthcare systems in the world, evident in the prestigious 2015 King’s Fund report.

Labor talks a big game when it comes to health, but the reality is that its savage budget cuts and forced savings have devastated and will devastate Victoria’s public health services and have an impact on Victorian women’s health. This hypocrisy was on full display in this year’s budget, cruelly slashing vital programs for women and babies. The early childhood sector was cut by $79 million; wellbeing supports for school kids were cut by $34 million; child protection was cut by $141 million; family violence services were cut by $29 million; and women’s policy was cut, following a further cut the year prior, by $3 million on the previous year. What will this mean? Bed and ward closures, service closures, further cuts to elective planned surgery, slashed breast screening services, closure of dialysis units, staff cuts and worsening health outcomes for all Victorian women.

Despite hyping up its public IVF program, the future of the service is in doubt. There is no funding for overall service delivery listed beyond 2025–26, and only a small amount is being provided for public fertility care at present. Without funding security and certainty, thousands of Victorian women may be unable to realise their dreams of motherhood. These issues extend to maternal and perinatal health care too. We heard from the member for South-West Coast that 2.2 per cent of mothers in public hospitals are facing unplanned readmission within 28 days of discharge, partly due to mothers being forced out of hospitals too quickly after giving birth. I am standing proof of that after being discharged 6 hours after my previous birth from the Northern Hospital, resulting in mastitis two days later. On top of this, the rate of unplanned newborn readmissions remains higher than before COVID. Almost 29 ‍per cent of women in public hospitals feel they are not involved as much as they want to be in decisions about their perinatal care.

These are the facts, and it is not just me saying this or the member for South-West Coast. On one of the Premier’s Facebook posts this week women across the state made their voices clear. I am going to directly quote from the Premier’s Facebook page:

People are suffering because of your poor decisions and you ignore them …

Another said:

Ignored. Dismissed. Gaslit.

And:

Exactly what you are doing to regional Victorians and their Hospitals.

I recently attended a community meeting in Seymour where more than 120 local residents shared similar frustrations about the possibility of hospital mergers. The Seymour community feels like they have been kept in the dark about the future of their beloved local health service, and they are not the only ones. Regional communities have some questions that should be answered about what mergers will mean for their jobs or their ability to access local health care. I have expressed these concerns in a letter to the Minister for Health and the board of the hospital and raised some of the questions that were asked during this meeting. It was clear just how important an issue this is for all of those in our community, and they do not feel supported when it comes to health care under this government.

While some of the information revealed was quite distressing, it was incredible to see the level of care our community has for our local health services. Our hospitals are a source of pride for our towns and must be given the proper support that they deserve. This is an issue that will, sadly, impact many of our communities across regional Victoria, and I have encouraged other towns in the region to make their voices heard to make sure that our local services are kept local and out of the hands of this government.

In the letter I wrote I questioned whether the Seymour Health board were even informed of the level of financial deficit of these metro hospitals or the staffing loss at these hospitals. To assume the priority of services or staff would flow back to a regional hospital from a major metropolitan hospital under immense pressure would be commercially naive. You can listen to your own community too. It is our local community who will pay the ultimate price. Replacing the community voice by moving local boards to larger hubs is not in our best interest, instead adding another level of bureaucracy for our community to access what it truly needs when it comes to health care.

The review of the Victorian health system was reinforced by the prestigious King’s Fund in 2015, commissioned, might I say, by the Department of Health. Now do your research. It stated Victoria had a well-understood governance model that gives boards running health services at a local level considerable autonomy, with a statewide framework of priorities. The report said Victorian health services had a culture of innovation, agility, a freedom to govern, all underpinned by a culture of organisational stability. All of this is under threat should these mergers happen. To go against these objective facts proves the Allan Labor government cannot manage our health system and does not care for regional women.

Mental health is another area that this government has brutally and cruelly ignored, with some of Victoria’s most vulnerable women being left without crucial support. The Allan Labor government deferred the establishment of 35 local mental health and wellbeing hubs, many in regional communities.

This decision makes a mockery of the mental health levy, which was supposed to fix this failed system. The levy imposed on employers has been in place since 1 January 2022, but it is clear the funds are being used elsewhere to plug the gaps in this debt-riddled budget. Year after year Labor make promises to support Victorians, only to quietly turn their backs, allowing our mental health system to decline further.

The Allan Labor government must prioritise consultation with the mental health sector rather than relying on political rhetoric. Having spoken with the sector at length, I was told of closures, long waitlists, an inability to make referrals and no handover between services for patients. When a local service in Broadford was forced to close its doors, nearby options were unable to take on their referrals, leaving vulnerable locals without a single low-cost option for counselling in the region. On the day we met, two ambulances were ramped out the front of a GP clinic on suicide watch. With a lack of bulk-billing options, many were simply unable to find mental health care that they could afford.

This government cannot manage money and it cannot manage a project, and regional women and their health are paying the ultimate price.

Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (16:51): I will not be doing a fact check on that speech, that is for sure. It would take a little while. But we are in the house and everyone is entitled to their time to speak and have their words, and some of us talk the facts and some do not. Need I say any more.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Gippsland South, you are not in your place. Maybe it is the place you would like to be, but that is not your place.

Belinda WILSON: It is interesting. I do have talking points, and I could have easily got up and interrupted the last speaker that read every bit from their notes, but respectfully I did not do that. I have got a lot of notes here that I can speak about, but I am actually going to talk about some stuff that probably is a bit more personal, so please buckle in for a nice conversation about many things about women – about menopause, periods and vaginas. I really hope you enjoy this conversation.

I was really pleased to listen to the contributions by my colleagues, who are doing incredible work in their electorates on these really important women’s needs and issues that we are facing. I think when the member for Yan Yean told the story about a girl – I cannot remember her name – Bethany, who spoke about what she needed with her treatment, it provoked a lot of emotion for me, because we are going through that in our house at the moment. My daughter, who is only 22, went along to her GP a few years ago at the tender age of 16 and was told that she was making up her pain issues and that there was nothing wrong with her. She comes from a family of three generations of hysterectomies, so it is very common, and I guess our ancestors and family members were just told, ‘That’s just how we are. It’s genetic. We’re made up that way. We have pain. That’s just the way it’s going to be.’

It was interesting because my mum at the age of 45, maybe nearly 50, had to have an 8-hour operation ‍– she had endometriosis attached to every organ of her body – and had to have a full hysterectomy. Fortunately for her, she had had three kids: two that survived, one that did not. She had had excruciating pain her whole life. My great-grandmother and my grandma probably never knew what they had and what they were going through. They were just told that was normal and that as a woman that is what you go through. For Mum it was a very severe operation. She had gone through 35 years of pain and severe bleeding like flooding, not being able to leave the house, haemorrhaging, having low iron, but again had just been told, ‘That’s what happens. That’s what you get when you’re a woman.’

For me to see my daughter go through that is very, very difficult. Those in this place who have children, we all want the best for our kids, and we do not like to see them suffering at any point, whether they are a newborn baby and they are crying and they will not take their bottle or whether they are adults and their hearts are broken or they are in pain. You send them along to the GP and you hope that they get the answers that they want. It is frightening how many times, when I have these conversations with family, with friends, with people in my electorate, with constituents – with so many people – they tell me that every time they go to the GP they do not believe their pain and when a man is with them they prescribe drugs but do not when they are on their own. I just do not understand that. It is frightening, and we need to change that. I think each – little by little – step we take and each change we make is in that direction.

I am digressing. My daughter went to the GP and was told that it was nothing, that she was fine and to go on the pill. You know, starting to take the pill at 16 is young, and is that the answer? It is not always the answer. She had really silently put up with her pain, and at 22, nearly 23, she still does. It is the same story as Bethany’s. When she was not feeling any better and was not getting any answers, I got her to see a specialist. I will never forget that day we took that call because we sat on the end of the bed and she said, ‘I’m sorry. You’ve got stage 4 endometriosis.’ For me, my brain automatically went to, ‘Can she have kids?’ That is the last thing on my daughter’s mind, but that was the first thing I thought of. She took us through all of that. There are lots of people with endometriosis that still do have children, but it is difficult. It can be difficult. She had to go through it. She had her first operation 18 months ago, and it is a big operation.

The thing that has touched me the most about this and about what we are doing as a government is being able to offer this service to those that cannot afford it. I could afford to pay for her to go to a specialist, but I speak to women every single day about these issues who cannot afford to have these operations and they suffer in silence. This is one of the biggest things that came up for us. The member for Narre Warren South hosted a great pain forum. The Minister for Health, who is in the chamber at the moment, attended with us when we had a pain forum. They were interesting, the things that came up in that forum. You automatically think about period pain and general pain issues, but what was so interesting was what came up in the room about the barriers with listening to talk about pain and what those barriers are: language, interpretation, not knowing what the pain is and what is causing it, not being listened to – not having people listen to you and understand what you are trying to say.

So I am really proud of this government and what we are doing with this. To get 12,000 responses to the pain survey is absolutely incredible. Kit, who took us through the service, really articulated how incredible this survey is and what a difference it is going to make. The work that the health minister and the parliamentary secretary, the member for Northcote, are doing is incredible work – going around to the electorates and speaking to people and hearing their stories. My story is just one small story of a small family, and we will continue to go down the path of managing it and hoping that it does not affect my daughter’s life. Modern medicine has changed a lot these days.

I really hope that Victorian women, as they grow older and as they grow up, are able to access these incredible services, and that is what it is about. It is not about today or tomorrow; it is about the future. Whilst these clinics are not built right now, they will be built, moving forward, in the future, and I am excited about that. It is also like the IVF clinic. There are so many people who cannot have kids. I have been lucky enough to have three kids, but so many people cannot, and we forget that.

I come to this chamber every day being so proud to stand with the women in this chamber, to stand with the people that have our backs and back each other in – and men also have these conversations with us, not only about pain, not only about women’s issues, because, yes, we are heading towards an over-50 generation, some of us in here. I am really proud to be part of this incredible government that is making change and doing such incredible things – not one note read.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (17:01): It is always great to contribute to a matter of public importance and particularly one where the government are really trying to paint a different picture than reality here, about them prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and the funding it deserves. I have a lot of evidence that I can bring to the debate here to show that that is absolutely not the case and that the government are in fact failing in this area. They always talk a big game when it comes to health, when it comes to supporting women, but let me tell you, the cuts that they have made recently, the savage cuts, the forced savings they are putting through the health system, the possible amalgamations, are going to devastate Victoria’s public health services. We see budget blowouts on major infrastructure projects to the tune of some $40 billion, and we see thuggish behaviour. We have seen allegations of corruption, intimidation and harassment and links to bikies and people of very poor standing that are really working hand in glove with the CFMEU. This is causing problems for all projects, and it means the government really do not have the money that they should have to put into investing in our health services and boosting things for women rather than making the cuts that they have. We saw things in the budget like the slashing of IVF services and the hospital budgets, the waiting lists – I will give some figures around the waiting lists shortly – the hospital amalgamations that are currently being forced at the moment and the failures in and around child and maternal health servicing, particularly in those growth corridor areas which are to the north and the south-east of Melbourne.

We have seen the budget; we have all had a good look at the budget; some of us I would suggest have had a much better and closer look than some of the others. But it did slash many vital programs for women and for babies as well. What we have seen is the early childhood sector supports and regulation cut by 11 per cent, $79 million – that is pretty significant – and wellbeing supports for schoolkids cut by $34 million or 8.4 per cent. And who does this fall back on? The women in the families that are typically taking the main lead and responsibility of caring for their schoolkids are the ones that absorb all this and get really stressed about what is happening. Child protection – it breaks my heart to hear that $141 million has been cut, 6.2 per cent. Child protection is an area in crisis. I have had families come and talk to me in my office, and it is really quite distressing, what is being done. They have let communities down.

We had an announcement not at the last election but at the election before about community hospitals. I think there were 10, and maybe only five are going ahead. For people in and around Eltham, the Eltham community hospital looks like it has absolutely been shelved. There was talk it might actually move from Eltham and go to Diamond Creek, and that has disappeared. These are some things that were said six years ago. They talk a big game. The one at Torquay: I remember reading an article – same deal. A young mother thought, ‘This will be great, a community hospital, a growth area like Torquay. It’s a place that we want to live in, and I feel great thinking that they’re investing in a community hospital in Torquay.’ You can say goodbye to that as well. This is very typical of what this government does. They make announcements, and they just cannot back it up.

I want to mention elective surgery, and we have waitlists. We have huge waitlists for all types of surgery, but there are a lot of women’s surgeries here: general gynaecological, endosurgery, reproductive surgery, urogynaecological issues – all of these sorts of things. In February this year we heard that the wait time for some of Victoria’s most vital health services continued to grow, and this is data released from the Victorian Agency for Health Information. This is real data. This is not made up. The elective surgery waitlist remains high: 67,207 patients are waiting for treatment. The average overdue wait time for category 3 patients has increased to 330 days compared to 281 a year ago. It is getting worse, and I know that we all know in this place about people waiting for surgery. They come to us; they talk to us. I heard the member for Narre Warren North; I was listening intently to her poor contribution, and she said people cannot afford to get surgery – and they cannot afford to go on the waiting list, because it takes years as well. I think she forgot to mention that.

I am going to mention some of the things that are happening locally, but prior to doing so I want to talk about family violence and some of the things that have been confirmed in this year’s budget – again, facts, things that everybody can go and check. The average wait time for a woman and families fleeing family violence when the government came to being was eight months, and now it is 24 ‍months, two years. Women are staying in dangerous relationships next to the perpetrators of the violence. They are not able to get support and to move on. This is stuff that is in the budget. This is not something that I have made up. The government are very good at talking the talk, but they are not very good at walking the walk. It is getting worse.

At the same time as they are talking about family violence, what needs to happen and how much progress they are making we see that there is a willingness to stand by those who have been charged with family violence offences: John Setka. It was really quite mind-blowing actually to see the members for Thomastown and Kororoit in secret messages – and the former CEO of EMILY’s List, who was supposed to be progressing the rights of women – come out and say, ‘John, hope it all blows over. You’ll be right mate; we’ll get through this.’ That is not what you do to those who have committed family violence.

With the hospital amalgamations that are happening at the moment, we have got amalgamations in country areas and some of the city areas, and prior to this happening is budget cuts. Some people have been told about budget cuts. There is a lot of secrecy. People are really trying to work out what is going on. Again, the Victorian Healthcare Association, the peak public health service body, says the Royal Children’s Hospital warned of jobs and services that are at risk, bracing for $60 million in cuts; the Royal Melbourne Hospital over the next two years, $230 million in cuts; Monash, $350 million; the Alfred, $230 million; and the Royal Women’s, specifically about health for women, $30 million. It is probably worse in country areas – Mildura, $12.3 million; Bendigo, $120 million.

These are cuts they need to find, and what is this going to mean? They are not going to be able to deliver the services. They are going to have to close wards. In Yea, in my home town, they have been talking about a 30 per cent cut to their budget. This makes it exceptionally difficult for health services to run effectively. Have a look at the hospitals in my area that may be forced to merge with Goulburn Valley Health. We have Alexandra, Yea and Mansfield and on top of that, out of the district of Euroa, Benalla, Seymour, maybe Wangaratta and Heathcote. This is what is proposed. The women in Mansfield have obstetric services. They actually can deliver babies there. They have GP obstetricians who do really well. It is a great model that works for them. They have gynaecological procedures.

They have them locally, get discharged locally and go back to their own doctor, who has that relationship with the hospital and who knows what is going on. They do not want to have to travel for other services weekly or monthly. Alexandra has a gynaecologist as a consultant, a specialist consultant. Is that going to go or not? Are they going to be expected to go to Shepparton, over an hour and a half away? These are not close distances by any means. Yea – if the consulting obstetrician out of Alexandra has gone and if there are changes to obstetrics in Mansfield, where will they go? What does it mean for these small country hospitals?

It is devastating what this government are currently doing. They are very happy to turn a blind eye to the thuggish behaviour – to the allegations of criminal behaviour – on major infrastructure projects. They are happy to have that $40 billion be a great hit for taxpayers. What that means is they do not invest where they need to invest. They actually need to invest in women’s services; they do not need to talk about it. They need to invest more in public IVF instead of cutting that, breast screening, perinatal health, maternal health and nurses. We have got a workforce shortage here, and nurses are walking away rather than wanting to come to our hospitals.

Ella GEORGE (Lara) (17:11): It is a pleasure to rise today to make a contribution to the matter of public importance submitted by the member for Northcote:

That this house recognises that the Allan Labor government is prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and funding it deserves.

I am so proud to be a member of this government, who are taking real action in this space to improve models of care and service delivery for Victorian women and girls. For far too long women’s health has been overlooked. It has been underfunded. Women have been persistently misdiagnosed and women’s pain has been dismissed. Women have been told that the pain they feel is just normal and that they should put up with it or that it is all in their head, even when we know from global research that more women report chronic pain than men do.

This is a government that is deeply committed to addressing inequities in women’s health, from record investment in women’s health facilities across the state, with landmark projects like the Barwon women’s and children’s hospital in Geelong, to establishing free and public IVF, launching the 1800 ‍My Options sexual and reproductive health phone line and establishing sexual and reproductive health hubs right across the state. And of course there is the landmark inquiry into women’s pain, the first of its kind in the world. This inquiry aims to address the challenges faced by women and girls when seeking care and support for the pain that they experience. It provides an opportunity for women, girls and clinicians to share their experiences of pain and pain management in their own words and for these experiences to be heard and acknowledged, often for the first time. The inquiry will listen to these experiences to identify the barriers and enablers when accessing care, treatment and services for pain conditions.

This is so important, as we know that women face real and continuing challenges when seeking care and support for pain. Chronic pain affects girls and women more than men around the world; however, women are less likely to receive treatment. A Victorian survey found that 40 per cent of around 1700 ‍women are living with chronic pain. Research has shown that women generally experience more recurrent pain, more severe pain and longer lasting pain than men. Medical gender bias routinely leads to a denial of pain and therefore a lack of pain relief and associated treatment for women. This occurs for various health conditions, including cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive and autoimmune conditions. From speaking with women in my community, I am sad to say that nearly every woman has an experience that reflects this.

Along with the member for Geelong and the member for Bellarine, I hosted a women’s health forum with the member for Northcote and women and girls from right across the Geelong region. That night we had 100 people in the room sharing their stories of pain and listening to one another’s experiences. Our expert panel bravely shared their stories – stories of endometriosis and living with chronic pain. The forum was fully booked out in record time, showing us just how much our community wanted to have this important conversation. Women are wanting to share their stories. They want to hear from others who have similar experiences to them. Importantly, the forum showed that our community wanted to be a part of this inquiry.

What this inquiry has shown is that women’s pain is not a niche issue. Over 12,000 women and girls in Victoria have made a submission to the inquiry or completed the survey. That is remarkable. One of those people who made a submission to the inquiry is a good friend of mine who has endometriosis and has had three surgeries for it. Her experience is like that of so many women: long waiting lists for surgeries in public hospitals, with surgery in private hospitals out of reach for many as it can leave women out of pocket over $10,000, symptoms of endometriosis that were not recognised by her doctors and doctors who did not believe her or treat her pain. When it comes to pain I think every woman has a story and her own unique experiences. Ahead of this debate I was reflecting on my own experiences of pain – nothing quite like endometriosis, but I do remember missing many, many days of high school because cramps were just so painful that I could not go to school. I remember in particular being in university in my first year and going to the bathrooms and throwing up from period pain that was so hard to manage.

What is clear is that we need more investment in women’s health so that we have healthcare professionals who can diagnose so-called niche issues early so that patients can get the care and the treatment that they need early, and that is exactly what we are focused on doing on this side of the house, with record investment into health care and focused, targeted investment into women’s health and sexual and reproductive health. The Allan Labor government is supporting more women to access free and comprehensive care and support under one roof with the opening of women’s health clinics across Victoria. Barwon Health in Geelong will be home to one of the first of these 20 new clinics, and these clinics will provide multidisciplinary care for conditions like endometriosis, PCOS and perimenopause as well as contraception and abortion services. These clinics will remove the barriers that women face when trying to access specialist care and deliver more services closer to home. Services will be delivered by hardworking gynaecologists, urologists, specialist nursing and allied health support all under this one roof. In Geelong I am pleased to say that the Barwon Health women’s clinic is now available five days a week.

In addition to this, the new $500 million Barwon Women’s and Children’s hospital in Geelong is something that the Allan Labor government is so proud to be funding. The new facilities will provide world-class maternity and paediatric facilities and deliver additional capacity to ensure that families in Geelong and our community can access the very best care close to home. This will include more maternity inpatient beds, paediatric inpatient beds, special care nursery cots, birthing suites, operating theatres and expanded paediatric and maternity specialist facilities. Site preparations commenced in September 2022 with the demolition of old buildings on the corner of Myers and Bellerine streets, enabling works to commence in mid-2024. These works will clear the way for main construction works. The expanded facilities will provide more access for people living locally, meaning more families can access the care that they need. Importantly, it will support the ongoing delivery of integrated health care that is family friendly, culturally safe, high quality and accessible. It is the largest investment we have ever seen into health infrastructure in the Geelong region and something that only a Labor government would deliver, allowing Barwon Health to grow their services to meet the needs of our ever growing community.

This government is truly transforming the way that health care for women is delivered in this state. Our $153 million women’s health election commitment will continue our work to give women the care they need and the care they deserve. It is important to acknowledge the tremendous strides we have made in prioritising women’s health in Victoria. From establishing the first clinic dedicated to women’s heart health to launching the statewide sexual and reproductive health phone line 1800 ‍My Options, the Allan Labor government has laid a strong foundation. With the most progressive reproductive choice laws in Australia, we have indeed set the standard.

However, our journey does not end here. We are embarking on groundbreaking reforms to revolutionise women’s health in Victoria through this substantial $153 million investment into women’s health. Furthermore, the recent 2024–25 budget has allocated an additional $18 million to support women’s health organisations in their crucial efforts to promote sexual and reproductive health, manage chronic conditions and combat family violence. This demonstrates our unwavering commitment to advancing women’s health and wellbeing in Victoria. As I said earlier, we have invested $58 million to deliver 20 new women’s health clinics, including in Geelong. In addition to this, we are delivering a mobile women’s health clinic, and this will improve access to services for women in regional and rural Victoria. We are investing in an additional nine sexual and reproductive health clinics, and this will expand the current statewide network to 20. These hubs provide access to contraception, medical abortion and referrals for surgical abortion as well sexual health testing and treatment.

We also plan to conduct 10,800 laparoscopies over the next four years in order to enhance the accessibility of diagnoses and treatments for conditions like endometriosis. We are taking initial steps to establish a pioneering women’s health research institute aimed at closing that research gap in women’s health, which has historically been chronically underfunded. We have allocated $2 million in scholarships to further educate our dedicated health professionals, empowering them with the knowledge and skills to better serve the women of Victoria. To date 175 scholarships have been awarded to nurses, GPs and other healthcare providers, covering a whole range of areas that are so important to women’s health.

Additionally, this year saw the successful inauguration of the Victorian Pelvic Pain Symposium, a groundbreaking event that brought together leading experts, scholars, researchers and advocates to collaborate on bringing improved patient-centric care to fruition. What we are finally seeing in Victoria is a real focus on women’s health on the medical research agenda.

For the first time in the Victorian Parliament the Legislative Assembly has achieved gender parity – a century after women were given the right to stand for election. That gender parity has been driven by this side of the house; 64 per cent of the cabinet are women, and it is not surprising that a government with such an unprecedented number of female MPs is focused on programs and policies that are informed by women and better support women and their children. And we will never stop supporting women. Women’s health has been neglected for too long, and it is time that changed.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (17:21): Women, trans people, non-binary folk and people who are gender diverse have historically been neglected, ignored and dismissed by our health system. In recent years this government has taken on the task of focusing on women’s health, and it is very comfortable committing publicly to addressing certain health inequities across the state that fall under women’s health. But unfortunately some health inequities have been prioritised over others, and other areas of health care that drive inequality, often ones that are clouded in shame, remain in the too-hard basket.

It is true this Victorian state government has announced a number of new clinics and services and sexual and reproductive health hubs, but last year the Auditor-General’s report showed that there were 17 local government areas with no access to medical or surgical abortions. It also showed that the sexual and reproductive health hubs have no consistency. Some provide accessible and frequent services while others provide very few. One of the newest hubs charges $500 up-front for a medical termination, and in government-funded hubs this should not be the case. They should be providing free services consistently. If the government really wants equity of access to health, then Victoria’s sexual and reproductive health hubs need resourcing so that they can all provide free services and so that they can have funding for ultrasound machines, training for their staff and funding for enough staff, not just one nurse or a doctor who only attends one day a week.

Many stakeholders have expressed frustration that the government is choosing to open new clinics rather than work to bolster the services that already exist – because in fact there are many hospitals across the state that do receive public funds and yet refuse to provide the whole suite of health needs for women and trans and gender-diverse people. In fact, the fact that the government is funnelling public money into opening new hospitals in key growth areas and yet these hospitals refuse to provide postnatal contraception, refuse to provide surgical terminations and refuse to provide tubal ligation or family planning consultations is beyond comprehension.

In November last year the Minister for Health announced that three hospitals across Melbourne would begin to offer surgical abortions, and we are thankful for that announcement. But what was needed to make this happen? For the minister herself to plead with the hospitals to take it up. Why rely on the opinions and the effort of the minister of the day to ensure that a publicly funded hospital provides abortion services? Are we still unsure whether accessing a termination is an essential right? Why doesn’t this government stand up and say, ‘If you are receiving our money, public money, you must provide these services’? Right now doctors, receptionists, nurses, sonographers and pharmacists can deny a whole host of healthcare services, including medical and surgical termination of pregnancy, if they conscientiously object – because this Labor government protects the rights of individual practitioners so they do not have to participate in certain, often life-saving, aspects of their profession.

Labor is responsible for these people being denied basic health care, not only by individual providers but by entire institutions. Being turned away from receiving medical health care exacerbates what is already a stressful situation. It erodes our trust in the health system, and it delays care which can lead to complications and limit somebody’s options. This is especially the case for terminations. For abortion, accessing care quickly is the difference between paying $42.50 for a medical termination or up to $8000 to access surgery in later stages of pregnancy. The prices are even higher if you do not have Medicare or if you are on a temporary protection visa.

What is more, Victoria is facing a syphilis epidemic. Despite these new hubs, there is nowhere near enough testing to impact the number of new cases that are spreading throughout our communities. In this day and age no baby should ever be born with syphilis. Congenital syphilis has a very high rate of death or disability, and it is very easily prevented with a simple blood test and penicillin. But it has reappeared in Victoria after a long absence. It was once rare in cis women and people with cervixes, but syphilis has returned and sexual health hubs are having no impact. So this government can and should do more to eliminate syphilis in our communities.

This is essential, often critical, health care and yet women, trans men, non-binary folk and gender-diverse people in need are often left to suffer, left unable to access care and left to be further stigmatised. This stigma is a result of outdated cultural norms and outdated state-based legislative barriers. The spectrum of trans and gender-diverse people needing such health care are often left out of so-called women’s health conversations, although many also have health needs that come under this umbrella term of women’s health. The medical system has failed by designing structures that cater only to the majority, but there is overwhelming documentation of trans and gender-diverse people facing difficulties navigating the health system, of being disproportionately impacted by adverse health outcomes and of not seeking medically necessary care due to the fear of mistreatment or prior experiences of harassment or mistreatment.

I would like to emphasise that this is not a criticism of our health workers. They are doing the absolute best they can with what they have been given. The government must provide adequate funding, more funding, to ensure access for everyone – funding that will enable the sector to break down the barriers faced by many women and trans and gender-diverse communities. Equating sexual and reproductive health – pap smears, chest cancer, cervical cancer, menopause, endometriosis, contraception – with only cis women can reinforce gender norms in a way that harms trans and gender-diverse people by excluding them from health care.

Again, the proliferation and protection of conscientious objection adds to stigma for members of our community who already face so many barriers to having their rights met. For First Nations people as well, for those from migrant and refugee backgrounds, if you live with a disability or if you live regionally and rurally, if any of these intersectional marginalisations apply to you and you need an abortion, an IUD inserted or any of those healthcare services, those barriers are compounded. Marginalised people still face higher boundaries accessing health facilities that offer the services they need, that are open to them and that are inclusive, safe and respectful.

While Labor celebrate – and we will join them in celebrating – the small steps that they have taken to support women’s health, I would encourage them to consider all parts of the sector and the parts of their own health departments that have traditionally fallen under the term ‘women’s health’, and I would ask them to consider whether their workforce, their training, their capabilities and their processes, educational materials, advocacy work, engagement, workplace culture, research and service provision are sufficient, up to scratch and truly inclusive.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (17:30): I am delighted to rise to speak on this very, very important matter of public importance (MPI). There is some good news ahead for the member for Richmond. Coming from Ballarat and regional areas, we have got a good story to tell. We do not see ourselves as marginalised, and we have got a lot on offer, but you will have to stay and wait to hear. This house recognises that the Allan Labor government is prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and the funding that it deserves. I would like to take a moment before I discuss it in full to point out that this focus has come about over a long time, with our party having affirmative action to make sure that we have women MPs in Parliament. As people have pointed out, we have 68 per cent ministers in cabinet, and we now have equal numbers in the house itself. Member for Richmond, you are going to miss out on the regions.

A member interjected.

Michaela SETTLE: It is past 4 o’clock and past Carlton. The reason I am making a point about the members that we have in this house is because there are a couple of members that I would really like to point out – and they are the conveners of our women’s caucus – so my good friend and neighbour the member for Wendouree, and with us in the chamber today is the member for Laverton. They did some pretty extraordinary things very early on. They got the women’s caucus together, and they sat down and – it was not just a talkfest – they looked at ways that they could make change, and, goodness, they did. The things that came out of those women’s caucus policy discussions went up through government, and we now have a government that has an extraordinary record on women’s health and women’s pain. I do just want to acknowledge the women’s caucus and particularly the women’s caucus conveners for driving that policy work. It has been so important, and we are a better government and a better state for it.

I guess I turn to home now. I was listening to the member for Richmond talk about marginalisation and about the regions as being marginalised. I am really delighted to report that some absolutely extraordinary things have gone on in the regions. First and foremost to talk about is we had the wonderful Minister for Health come up in April, and she was announcing the women’s pain clinic being set up in Ballarat. Of course let us remember that that covers a very broad area. Ballarat Base Hospital, which is in fact the Grampians Health service, services all of the Grampians. We have got this fantastic hub coming to our electorate, and I know that many women in my community are delighted to know about that.

There are a few other things that I would really like to highlight. We have an extraordinary organisation in Ballarat called Women’s Health Grampians, and they have done a power of work to promote women and women’s issues in the region. This government acknowledges the good work they do and supports the good work they do, and I am delighted that they are commencing a program called Menopause@Work. Lots of people have talked about their experiences of having children, and members of the opposition at the table have stories to tell about having children. That was a long time ago for me, and even menopause is becoming a distant memory. Going through menopause was extraordinary. I have a wonderful mother who tried to talk me through everything, but it is surprising how little information there was even 10 years ago when I first started to go through menopause. There was no information 10 years ago, really, about what was coming down the line. It is funny because I even find it notable that we talk so openly about menopause in this place, and I am delighted that we have got to this stage because it is something that every woman will go through, and it is a pretty important part of your life. There is a lot to get through there.

This program from Women’s Health Grampians is about menopause at work, and I think that is really interesting, trying to get workplaces to understand the reality of what is happening to women. With all due respect to Acting Speaker Edbrooke in the chair, if this was a man’s problem you would all have a day off, no problem at all. We have battled through what for some women can be really debilitating effects of menopause, and that should be no barrier to a fulsome career. I think that the work that Women’s Health Grampians are doing is around getting people at workplaces across Ballarat, going in there and talking to them about what their workforce is going to be facing, so I am delighted that our government supported that, just one of the many, many supports that we have offered in this space.

We have another extraordinary organisation called Ballarat Community Health, and it services the area broadly as well. They are funded and have a sexual and reproductive health clinic, so the member for Richmond, were she to go to the marginalised area of Ballarat, would be able to find those services. I would like to point out that, through the hard advocacy of my colleague the member for Ripon, one of those clinics is now opening up in Ararat as well. So we go further afield, acknowledging that women live everywhere and women need that support, and this government has done so much to bring that to the regions.

This MPI really is about this government’s focus on women’s health. Of course there has been lots of discussion around the pain inquiry, and that has been an extraordinary experience to go through. I believe there has been over 12,000 submissions to that inquiry, and in many ways it is horrifying that so many women have gone through this experience and not had a place or a forum to talk them through. Of course those forums are not just about talking; they are about informing us as a government what more we can do, and I know with such a fierce women’s caucus and a fierce woman at our helm this government will continue to develop more and more programs that really support women through their varied experiences.

As I say, my experience of menopause is very different from the conversations we have had today here about childbirth and endometriosis. I have not had those, but I have been through menopause. But we have all had that experience. Both of my sons were born by caesarean, and I quite literally found out recently that a caesarean is a bit of a flag for developing endometriosis. I did not know that, and no-one told me that when I was going in for my two surgeries. So when I started to have a pain, it was actually someone in this building, who will remain nameless, who said to me, ‘Hey, you had caesars; it might be related to that.’ That information should be there, and with these wonderful hubs that are coming to Ballarat, in that circumstance I can go and say, ‘I think we’ve been told for too long to buckle up.’ We are pretty tough. Having gone through childbirth, we are all pretty tough, and maybe we have been too tough. At last we have got, thanks to this government, an opportunity to go to a specialised clinic that will have specialists in there that understand the finer details of the many and varied things that women go through.

As a matter of public importance, I am incredibly proud to stand up for the record of this government in women’s health. I cannot think of another government that has led such a strong and open charge to improve women’s circumstances, particularly with regard to women’s health, and to identify through the pain inquiry more work that we can do. This government is made up of women, and it is a great supporter of women. Our women’s caucus has just done amazing stuff in bringing this to the fore, and I know that we are going to keep fighting every day within this government to make sure that women’s issues sit at the forefront of everything we do. But I do stand on our extraordinary record of provision of women’s health.

Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (17:40): If this Labor government was serious about women’s health and mental health, then why didn’t they look out for Jane Garrett? Why didn’t they look out for Kaushaliya Vaghela? Why didn’t they look out for all of the Labor women who have been exposed to violence and domestic violence and sexual harassment from Labor men? That is what I would ask, because this goes to the heart of Labor’s hypocrisy. Labor are hypocrites when it comes to this. They like to talk the big game and have the headline about women’s health, but really, when it comes to the crux of it, they actually do not care. They would rather care about the CFMEU bosses and bikie gangs. There are not many women there, and in fact the harassment and intimidation and thuggery by the men in the CFMEU, the CFMEU bosses and bikie gangs, is something to behold. It is amazing how the Labor government would rather care about the CFMEU and protecting their position than actually doing what it takes to support women and women’s health across Victoria.

When I looked at this matter of public importance (MPI) put forward by this Labor government, the first woman I thought about was Tammie from Ringwood North, who tragically had her son Ben stolen from her. Tammie’s son, an Indigenous boy, worked on a CFMEU site. He was really proud of being in construction, getting trained and getting a job on a construction site, but he was bullied by the CFMEU. Tammie’s son was bullied by the CFMEU, locked up in a shed for hours by CFMEU bullies enabled by Premier Allan’s rotten Big Build. He went home. He was so upset and distressed, he committed suicide – died of a drug overdose. That was Tammie’s son. What has that done for Tammie’s health? That has done absolutely massive damage, untold damage, to Tammie and her health. She is a woman – she is a Victorian woman – and this Allan Labor government let her down.

I think of Rosie Batty. The CFMEU also have a pretty terrible record there – and their former leader John Setka. Rosie Batty, again, suffered untold damage when her son died at the hands of a male perpetrator, her former husband, and yet the CFMEU and John Setka came out against Rosie Batty, who is now a really well-known and advanced advocate for women experiencing and fleeing family violence. But the Allan Labor government decided to do more to protect the CFMEU on these corrupt state government construction projects than women like Rosie Batty and all of the others experiencing family violence.

Just think of the $40 billion in budget blowouts as a result of the corruption, kickbacks and misuse of public funds on CFMEU construction worksites that could have otherwise gone to help women fleeing domestic violence. Under this Allan Labor government we have a housing crisis, and particularly women facing family violence are now waiting up to 24 months to get housing. But back on the CFMEU issue before I explore housing a little further, under the CFMEU and the leadership of John Setka but not just John Setka, all of the bullies and thugs in the CFMEU who this Allan Labor government have protected and enabled, I was really astonished to hear that it is actually Labor women, like the member for Kororoit, like the member – I do not know where the other member is from because she is never here –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Edbrooke): Member for Evelyn, it has been a wideranging debate and I have given you plenty of latitude. Let us bring the debate back to the MPI, please.

Bridget VALLENCE: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I would really appreciate not being told how to talk about women’s health, because for me these are precisely about women’s health.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Edbrooke): That was not a point of order; that was a ruling from the Chair.

Lauren Kathage: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member is defying your ruling.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Edbrooke): Thank you.

Bridget VALLENCE: It is so typical that Labor men tell women how they should think and feel. As a woman I find it highly offensive how these Labor men and Labor women tell Liberal women how they should feel and diminish the feelings of Liberal women.

I will repeat what I am talking about here in relation to the protection racket of the CFMEU by many Labor women. It is completely astonishing that we even got to this, that when former CFMEU head John Setka was embroiled in an awful situation where he was found to have harassed his former female partner, we had members of this Allan Labor government defending him and giving him tips on how he could actually make himself look like a better and improved man. It is completely outrageous.

I will move now to housing. Frankly, if this Labor government were so serious about women’s health, they would really do something more about the extraordinarily long waiting lists for women fleeing family and domestic violence. It now takes some 24 months for women fleeing family and domestic violence to access public housing under this Allan Labor government. Back in 2014 it was an eight-month wait, and that has increased year after year after year under Labor to now 24 months wait time for a woman with her children fleeing domestic violence. That is a 300 per cent increase. Why is that so important to the health of these women? It is because with the 24-month wait to get into public housing when they are experiencing and fleeing family violence at the hands of male perpetrators these women are often forced back into the hands of the male perpetrators and the violence that they are committing on these women. These women are having to live in their cars, sleep in cars, couch-surf, which has terrible physical and mental health outcomes for these women., and that is a shameful record of this Allan Labor government. They talk a big game on housing, but the amount of housing that they are providing to these women fleeing domestic violence is completely dismal. I can only imagine the anguish and pain. In fact I know someone – a woman whose son plays football with my son – fleeing family violence who has had to couch-surf with her three children, one of which was a baby, because she had no support from the Allan Labor government.

In terms of health outcomes for women, those women with young children who need to access the emergency department at Maroondah Hospital are not being looked after. The Maroondah Hospital’s emergency department is under severe strain and pressure. In fact Maroondah Hospital is under a cloud. This Allan Labor government knows how bad the situation is at Maroondah Hospital, so much so that it said that it was going to fix it and upgrade it in 2018 as an election promise. It failed that election promise. In 2022 it promised again to upgrade the Maroondah Hospital, the biggest public hospital for the residents in my community to access. Again, it has so far failed to allocate any capital funding to upgrade that hospital.

We have ambulances ramped at Maroondah Hospital. Some of the hardworking paramedics in my community at Lilydale ambulance station, many of whom are women – these paramedics are women ‍– are telling me how challenging it is that they are spending their entire shifts sitting in their ambulance ramped at Maroondah Hospital. These paramedics do an amazing job providing health care and emergency response to people in my community, often women and children, but they are sitting ramped at Maroondah for their entire shift. Where is the duty of care from this Labor government to these public sector employees, these paramedics? They have a war on paramedics. This Allan Labor government is at war with paramedics, many of whom are women. They are not being cared for properly. Their mental health and their ability to provide a great service to their community are being completely denigrated by this Labor government. This MPI is so serious, but it is being treated as a joke by Labor.

Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (17:50): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. There are so many elements of our commitment to women’s health that I think I could fill the rest of the evening, but I cannot leave that last contribution from the member for Evelyn, especially as it relates to our commitment to our health services workforce, without going back to a story that I have told before, a story that I first heard from the member for Melton about what happened the last time there was a Liberal Party member for Cranbourne. I know the member for Melton tells this story with a lot of important vigour, that there was a privatised ambulance service the last time the Liberal Party held Cranbourne.

Today I was very fortunate to be able to honour the previous member for Cranbourne Jude Perera, who served the community I am now fortunate enough to serve with passion and care and who fought day and night for our health workforce. I am very conscious that it is a feminised workforce. I happen to also have as one of my constituents the previous assistant state secretary of the nurses federation. She talks about what it was like when the Liberal Party last had that honour of serving Cranbourne. There is nothing quite like a hardworking union like the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, like our ambulance employees, to remind us that there is one party that is trusted with our healthcare system. I am very honoured to have been a member of this party since 1992 and to have watched the way that we make sure that our services are supported and funded the way that they should be.

Sexual and reproductive health is something that is at the centre, for so many of us, of the reason that we have decided to commit ourselves to standing for election. It is something that motivates so many of us. As one of the majority of Labor Party members of Parliament who are women, I – like so many of my colleagues and the many allies we have in the Labor Party – care very much about making sure that our healthcare system caters for and is centred around women.

As part of that I was very fortunate to join with the member for Narre Warren South when he held a women’s pain forum. As part of that the Minister for Health attended, as did my colleague the member for Narre Warren North. We heard from the women in our community about why our health system needs to focus on women’s pain and what happens when our health system ignores women. It was extraordinary. I think that so many of us, over and over again, are moved by the resilience, courage, grit and determination of our diverse community and what they have endured to care for family and to often put their own lives on the line to be able to give their children the best start in life. So what an honour it was for me to be joining with the members for both Narre Warren South and Narre Warren North at the pain forum with the minister and to hear firsthand about how important it is for us to take women’s health experiences seriously.

I was also very fortunate to join with the member for Bass, a very hardworking member with a great passion for women’s health. She also held a forum, and at that forum we were really so delighted that the Premier of Victoria was able to attend. I just have to say that the generosity of the women in the community that I serve came through over and over and over again, the way women stand shoulder to shoulder with each other and support each other. That was demonstrated in a way that really energised me and reminded me why it is important for us to listen to women.

In the context of that particular forum, I do want to identify particularly the Cranbourne mosque. The sisters at the mosque – many of them are healthcare workers. In fact several of the sisters at the mosque are nurses themselves. The way that the women look after each other involves multigenerational conversations, reassuring each other that what they are experiencing is worthy of care. I pay credit particularly to the sisters at the Cranbourne mosque not just for the way that they reassure some of the younger women who gather with them as they share cups of tea and talk about experiences in their own families but the way that they often say, ‘That doesn’t sound right. Go back and ask another question’ or ‘Let me commend another doctor to you because it sounds like the care you’re getting isn’t absolutely the care that you deserve.’ This is an opportunity for me to thank the women at the Cranbourne mosque for the way that they have brought me into their hearts as well as the way that they have ensured that they care for each other in a way that is compassionate and generous and kind.

We had a terrific Sikh community leader attend one of the pain forums, and she was extraordinarily generous. I would like to pay credit to Amrit for the way that she articulated the issues and concerns that are experienced by many members of the diaspora and for her words when she said, ‘I can’t believe I came to this country 17 years ago and I find myself sitting next to the Premier of Victoria’, who shared her experiences of the healthcare system. That generosity is something that is not just marked but something that is a credit to the Victorian community. We have got to a situation where people can share and have that mechanism in place to be able to put forward their own experiences and then, in turn, that the health system will be able to respond to that in a way that acknowledges that there is so much more that can be done but that this government is listening to the community and is open to making any changes to the mechanisms to ensure that the care is there.

I often talk about this, but I hold monthly chai and chats, and I just held one last Saturday. As always, the women in the community provided the tea and provided cakes and companionship. The way that the women in the community turn to each other to assure each other is always something that astounds me and delights me. I am very grateful in particular to identify one of the community members from the Zimbabwean millennium sewing club, Lindi, for the way that that group looks after each other and takes notice of the care that is needed and the way that they nurture each other, including particularly people who have not long been in Cranbourne and particularly sometimes some of the younger members of the community. It is a very nurturing environment at the millennium sewing club. I watch those women, shoulder to shoulder, listen to each other and pivot around and sometimes say, ‘That doesn’t seem right. You need to get some new advice or some additional care.’

I am also going to take the opportunity to thank the BAPS organisation – in fact a couple of them are clinicians themselves – for the way that they generously share their advice but also ensure that the temple where they congregate is a place of welcome and inclusion. It is extraordinary to see.

To think, Acting Speaker Edbrooke, that your community, and Frankston in particular, is a place where my constituents can go to get additional health care at one of the first tranches of the clinics is very important. I am very fortunate to have Frankston Hospital growing exponentially – the resources that go into Frankston Hospital and this extraordinary capacity that we are building in our community – but also our workforce, our hardworking nurses and our clinicians, are going to be able to staff that in a way that is appropriate. I commend this matter of public importance.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (18:00): I am pleased to rise for the remaining 1 minute on the matter of public importance submitted today by the member for Northcote:

That this house recognises that the Allan Labor government is prioritising women’s health by giving it the focus and funding it deserves.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. We have heard contributions today from across the chamber that do not tend to highlight the cuts that we saw in this year’s budget to women’s services and health services right across the state of Victoria. Whether they were cuts to IVF services or hospital budgets, we are now staring down the fact that there are going to be amalgamations across regional Victoria, cutting health services for women right across this state. These forced hospital amalgamations will see child and maternal health services cut time and time again in this state. While this government likes to promote and talk up their responsibility for women, their responsibility when it comes to women’s health, nothing could be further from the truth, because this government cannot manage money.