International Women’s Day
Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (12:56): This month we recognise and celebrate International Women’s Day, and the theme this year is ‘Accelerate Action’. It is an important theme around the outcomes that we need to see to support women and girls in our community. We see across the community more representation in this place, in workplaces and in the Victorian government’s policy around 50 per cent of board representations. We have seen audiences around the world captivated by the Matildas and their incredible success. As we see sporting prowess across the way, celebrating women and girls across our communities, we need to reflect on how we become upstanders and support women and girls, as men and boys in our community, to call out concerning behaviour and to call out disparaging comments that are made towards women and girls. We all have a role to play; we all need to be upstanders. When women talk about the impact of endometriosis and the one in seven women that experience that, some 1.5 million women in Australia, we do not say that it is not real. We understand and validate medical evidence and research, and we support women into the future. That is why the women’s pain inquiry forum that this government set about was so very important. When we think about accelerating action, it is not just words – as much as those statements are important – but it is in policy and it is in action in every single hour in every single day that we exist to make sure that women and girls in our community are supported, and men in boys have a role to play in being upstanders in our community.