Tuesday, 4 March 2025

Women’s health

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (19:03): (1032) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister or the Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health to join my community for an update on the women’s pain inquiry and to participate in another community forum on this really important topic and issue for our community. It was the Allan Labor government that announced this important initiative to put women’s pain on the agenda and to make sure that greater awareness and understanding were had about the issues that face women and girls in our communities.

We were overwhelmed by the response from Victorians. Over 13,000 submissions were made, and a significant amount of lived experience stories and a range of issues were covered. It was really amazing to host a women’s pain inquiry forum with the Premier of Victoria, the Minister for Health and my parliamentary colleague the member for Clarinda to have a greater understanding and hear directly. I will say, as a male representative of my community, it was my role to hand over to Women’s Health in the South East, but to platform that opportunity was one of the best if not the best thing I have done in my community. To have generations of women in our community, and girls, share their experiences, participate in this forum and make a submission and then also to have Women’s Health in the South East, led by Kit McMahon, who is an absolute champion in the south-east in a range of policy areas – she is just one of the best people going – facilitate that was a really amazing outcome.

We have seen recently some pretty harrowing comments that have been made in community. We have seen the discussion around women’s sport that was deeply offensive and troubling for community members, and Victorians universally condemned that. But the comments that were made on Triple M recently about women’s pain were something that I found absolutely outrageous, and that was around endometriosis. One in seven women in Victoria will confront endometriosis, and across Australia it affects 1.5 million women. It is a significant issue in our community that needs far more research and support and consideration into the future. To hear someone platform and question the legitimacy of that ailment and that disease and that impact was something really shocking. It just highlighted the importance of this inquiry and the importance of confronting women’s health issues – to validate, to support women and girls in our community. Why were this inquiry and forum so important? Some 4500 submissions talked about endometriosis, so I am really keen to hear from the Minister for Health and the parliamentary secretary if they can join me for an update on the inquiry and the anticipated outcomes and journeys that this really important inquiry has for our Victorian communities.