The 74 women killed in Australia since this time last year were recognised in Parliament today. First by Labor MP Sharon Claydon and then by Opposition leader Sussan Ley, who issued a plea for Australia to “maintain the rage”.
Sharing the list in the lead-up to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Tuesday, Claydon said she reads a list every year and hopes it will be the last time she needs to do so.
Following Claydon’s reading of the list, the Liberal leader also stood to read the list of 74 women identified by the Red Heart campaign.
Ley has also read lists in previous years, but this time was the first she had done so as leader of the Opposition.
“These names should echo through this building and echo across our country. 74 women have been killed in Australia since this time last year. 74,” she said.
“How do we maintain the rage? How do we cut through? How do we overcome fatigue?”
It was an impassioned plea from Ley to maintain the rage, as it was also from Claydon representing the Albanese Government.
And yet the rage on this issue appears to fall silent at the points that could make a difference.
During this year’s election campaign, the issue of violence against women hardly got a mention from either of the major parties. Not even when four women died in one week of the campaign, allegedly at the hands of men. And not even in light of the fact that violence against women was declared a “national emergency” by Prime mininster Anthony Albanese in the year prior to the election.
The issue of violence against women more generally did not come up during the first two leaders’ debates between Albanese and then Opposition leader Peter Dutton.
The death toll of violence against women isn’t going down. Despite the rage of days like today, and the rage shared this time last year and the year before that.
The rage, when performed at key moments rather than underpinning all other policy discussions, can only go so far. What’s needed is real, continuous substance and funding to address the issue, and to ensure it’s embedded and considered across all policy areas, from housing to education, justice, climate change, and energy.
Ley, as Opposition Leader, has noted that she understands women’s fear and the pain of coercion and control. because it’s a fear she’s felt too.
Ley has promised to take this perspective into every decision she makes.
She has promised not to let domestic and family violence fall down the list of priorities.
But already for the Coalition, it’s hard to believe violence against women has come anywhere near the top of the priority list, given the energy, time and party politics that have gone into dumping net zero in the past couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, the issue has barely raised a blip in the current Albanese Government. Not much beyond some additional funding announced in 2024 following the Bondi Westfield massacre and Albanses’s declaration of a “national crisis” in the days following.
“These women have stories. These women have names. We must not ever forget them,” Ley added today when addressing the House of Representatives.
“Can we imagine what the response would be if 74 Australians were killed on a single day at a single event?
“It wouldn’t just be me reading out their names. Our nightly news would have them eblazoned across news packages. Their names would be etched into marble, memorialised, and, year after year, we would reflect on the loss.”
Now as thing currently stand, can we really imagine much will change one year from now?
The women killed in the past year in Australia, as read in Parliament today:
- 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
- Phoebe 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
- Ms Chainsaw
- Ali Lauren
- Carra Samantha Luke
- Diane Harness
- Ashleigh Grice
- Carolyn Campbell
- Rajwinder Kaur
- Jordana Johnson
- Lisa Ward
- Rhukaya Lake
- Irene Selmes
- Marcia Chalmers
(Plus an additional 12 unnamed women.)
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 000.
If you need help and advice call 1800Respect on 1800 737 732, Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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