Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Since we marked this day a year ago 74 women have been taken from us.
The women killed in the past year in Australia, as read in Parliament:
Sandra Dobrila
Yuko
Heang Kim Gau
Pauline Slater
Charlyze Hayter
Zhuojun (Sally) Li
Khouloud Hawatt
Chloe Jade Mason
Kristy Louise Hunter
Yvonne Beres
Ms Multa
Katie Tangey
Merril Kelly
Lilian Catherine Donnelly
Rachel McKenna
Rachel Moresi
Justine Hammond
Elizabeth Pearce
Kara Jade Weribone
Crystal Beale
Audrey Griffin
Irene Herzel
Cecilia Webb
Czarina Gatbonton Tumaliuan
Louise Hunt
Claire Austin
Thi Kim Tran
Jocelyn Grace Mollee
Kylie Sanders
Kim Duncan
Talulah Koopman
Samia Malik
Caroline (Carlee) Smith
Muzhdah Habibi
Lauren Hopkins
Norma Diana Dutton
Krystel Paul
Pheobe Bishop
Leanne Akrap
Julia Neira Marican
Angela Gauld
Sally Bartlett
Shelley Spinks
Jeanette McIver
Amanda Rahan
Shafeeqa Husseini
Zoe Walker
Athena Georgopoulos and her unborn child
Summer Fleming
Anu
Ali Lauren
Carra Samantha Luke
Diane Harness
Ashleigh Grice
Carolyn Campbell
Ms Chainsaw
Rajwinder Kaur
Jordana Johnson
Lisa Ward
Rhukaya Lake
Irene Selmes
Marcia Chalmers
And 12 more unnamed women, including those for cultural reasons not named publicly.
These names are women. These were Mothers. Daughters. Sisters. Friends.
These women have been identified by the Red Heart Campaign, and the work of Counting Dead Women Australia researchers of Destroy The Joint.
They deserve our thanks for their relentless commitment to remembering these women.
Yesterday I stood in our national Parliament and read these names into our national record, as I have before, and will do so again – because these women matter and we should never forget them.
These names should echo across our country.
Can we imagine what the response would be like if 74 Australians were killed on a single day, or at a single event?
Our nightly news would have them emblazoned across news packages. We would stand together as a country. We would lower flags. We would pause to reflect, and to mourn. Their names would be etched into marble and memorialised and year after year we would reflect on the loss.
These womens’ names, and the names that have come before, are all too often lost. Lost amid the noise.
Lost amid the silence. Or spoken once in a glaring moment of national attention, and then never again.
Until yet another horrific event to force us to reckon with the scale of the challenge this list of women represents.
But we do not need new horrors to remind us today that violence against women remains pervasive and present in every corner of our country.
Like some sort of unseen force it stalks, and takes, and silences.
So yet again today we will meet, speak about that loss and take stock of how we move forward.
How are we to maintain the rage? How do we cut through? How do we overcome the fatigue?
How are we to drive down violence and confront culture? And where is the hope?
Well first we must face the facts. This problem is not dissipating and without new action and new energy it will get worse. We cannot stand still.
According to Our Watch in Australia, intimate partner violence contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 25 to 44 than any other preventable risk factor, and domestic or family violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women.
This moment demands a whole-of-community response, this is not a ‘women’s issue’. But there is hope too.
We can find hope in the fact that engaging with men and boys in violence prevention has never carried more support than today. Organisations like Movember are stepping up, engaging men and changing minds. We need more men’s groups to step up because men’s health policy is women’s safety policy.
We can also find hope in the work being done in the prevention of violence against women. We can see it in the steadfast work of organisations like Our Watch, the countless domestic violence shelters that rescue women from harm and the breakthrough impact from Teach Us Consent on our next generation.
There is hope in the consensus across our parliaments and our communities that we can and must drive new initiatives to confront this challenge together.
As Leader of the Opposition, and the first woman to hold this position, I have been proud to give our commitment to support any measures to better address drivers of violence and to get the funding promised out the door quicker.
Today, despite our grief, we can find hope in the progress we have made together. Let us use that hope to drive us.
Because we must not look away. We must continue to go into the dark places. We must continue to shine the light.
These women have stories. These women have names.
We must not forget them.