It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in support of the government business program. Once again we have some very serious and substantive pieces of legislation coming before the house for debate, which speak to our Labor government’s commitment to making Victoria safer and fairer. These are values which are at the core of the Labor Party and run a continuous thread through many aspects of our legislation in general – a safer place for Victorians to live and thrive, a fairer place for Victorians to reach their potential. One of the particular elements of these values which I have had the fortune to work on in depth is gender equality and making our state safer for women, and later today we are going to be debating the Crimes Amendment (Non-fatal Strangulation) Bill 2023, which will introduce a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation. It builds on our work across the last nine years to address the scourge of family violence and embed gender equality.
Before entering politics as an MP I had the honour of working alongside Victoria’s first Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, Fiona Richardson, who was also the previous member for Northcote. Fiona used the final years of her life to drive and embed an extraordinary amount of reform to make women and children safer in their homes and in our communities. She was ferocious in those efforts, and as her adviser I was proud to be working at the coalface of an issue that had been left in the dark for far, far too long. Too many Victorian women and children still face family violence in our state, but through unprecedented investment and reform we are seeing more prevention efforts and more avenues for people to be supported. It is absolutely in keeping with our government’s program of work that this bill is brought forward – to add to those efforts and to recognise that linkage between serious behaviour and other patterns of family violence.
Labor’s track record here is undeniable. Whether it has been through the Royal Commission into Family Violence, our Gender Equality Act 2020, Respectful Relationships education in schools, establishing Respect Victoria or strengthening our laws around consent, we have been ambitious and we have been determined. This is an important aspect of our government business program today.
Later in the week we will be debating several other incredibly important pieces of legislation. In fact all three of the bills being debated this week are deeply impactful and relevant to the people of Victoria. The Corrections Amendment (Parole Reform) Bill 2023 is one which we wish were not required to be put forward, given the shocking crimes which led to its development, but it is one which Victorians rightly expect their government to bring forward and take action with. We expect the contributions on the bill to be respectful of the emotional toll that such debate inevitably has on families and communities that have suffered and continued to suffer because of those things. It is always important, I think, as we consider these heavy matters in the Parliament to be thinking about their reverberating impact for Victorians. While the content of what will be spoken about during that debate is difficult, including for my colleague the member for Frankston whose community was directly impacted, it is also incredibly necessary that we as a government do not shy away from complex and difficult issues, and confronting some of the darkest aspects of human nature and of history and working towards giving recognition and making legislative change to prevent such events from happening again is exactly what we have a record of doing in Victoria – on issues like conversion therapy, on issues like justice for Aboriginal Victorians and on issues like forced adoption practices. We do not shy away from those things.
The third piece of legislation coming before us this week is the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (WorkCover Scheme Modernisation) Bill 2023, which will be an opportunity for members to make contributions about the future of this very important scheme. Members will have an opportunity to consider this bill in detail and talk thoroughly to the substance of the bill. This is appropriate, given how important it is to have a sustainable WorkCover scheme for Victorians. I think this is a very serious and significant government business program. It is good to see the opposition are not opposing it.
