#MarchForJustice: The work for gender equality continues
Yesterday we marched for justice. Today, I called on Parliament to do the work that's needed to achieve true gender equality.
Dr RATNAM: I was so proud and so moved to join thousands of women marching for justice in Melbourne yesterday. We marched for every woman who has been harassed, assaulted, discriminated against and treated like a second-class citizen. We stood in solidarity with every woman who has felt unsafe in their workplace or walking the streets. We remembered every woman who has been killed by their intimate partner and the one woman each week whose life will be taken by family violence until we actually, as a society, take this seriously and end violence against women.
While what has been happening in Canberra has lit the flame of our rage, make no mistake: this movement has been smouldering for decades. We are sick of how we are being treated, and we are sick of our so-called leaders dismissing, ignoring and not believing us. We have had enough.
There is work for all of us to do to achieve true gender equality. There is work in this place too. But even just last week when I moved a motion to make our Parliament a more inclusive and family-friendly workplace for women, I was howled down by and heckled by the Liberal Party. It is clear that some of us have more work to do than others. And for those political parties who seem incapable of believing women, we have one option, as my former Greens colleague Huong Truong said yesterday: vote them out.