MILDURA MP Ali Cupper and gender equality councillor Helen Healy both delivered impassioned speeches at Mildura’s March4Justice event on Monday.
Mildura’s protest, held outside federal MP Anne Webster’s office on Eighth Street, was among dozens of gatherings held across Australia to protest unacceptable treatment of women in the workplace and the community, and the right of women to feel safe.
Speaking at the gathering, Ms Cupper argued the standard of proof needed to shift to make women safer in their workplaces.
“I want to offer a new way of thinking for people like the Prime Minister,” she said.
“We need beyond reasonable doubt to be the standard of proof for sending someone to jail for a crime, I don’t disagree with that. But when it comes to making decisions about recruitment, or workplace laws, or managing harassment in the workplace, it should be the balance of probabilities.
“It should be ‘Is it more likely than not that this happened?’”
The nationwide March4Justice movement comes as the federal government is under a cloud over the alleged rape of a former Liberal staffer by a colleague and rape allegations dating back to 1988 levelled against Attorney-General Christian Porter, which he strongly denies.
Ms Cupper called on her fellow parliamentarians to act, arguing that change on issues around women’s safety needed to come from the top.
“How are we ever going to address this problem when the problem is in our nation’s capital, federal parliament, where we should feel safest?” she said.
“Just after the Brittany Higgins story came out, I was at Victorian Parliament, just after 11pm … I was walking to the bathroom and thinking for a second, ‘Am I safe?’
“It’s 2021, we shouldn’t feel unsafe in the halls of what should be the most powerful, exemplary institutions.”
Ms Cupper also had a message for men.
“I heard someone mention recently about men and ‘Isn’t it terrible that mean have to live with this idea that if they’re accused of something they could lose everything?’” she told the crowd.
“The answer to men is this … you think about the things we (women) have to live with every single day, which is ‘What if I’m raped?’
“If you have to feel a little bit awkward about the fact that you might be accused one day and then you’d have to defend yourself, that’s a fair deal, I think.
“It’s going to stop women from having to avoid situations, avoid professional situations, avoid parliament, because they’re scared they’re not going to make it out alive.”
Mildura councillor Helen Healy told those gathered that her passion for the March4Justice campaign had very personal roots.
“And I’m here this morning because I spent an hour on the phone with a very close female relative, who’s still recovering from the impact of child sexual abuse to this day,” she said.
“This morning, I got a text from a high profile woman in this community saying, ‘I am marching, I am there, because my rapist is still out there living his miserable life and I got very little justice’.
“We all carry the load for these people, and we all have to say enough is enough. We have to have these conversations, men and women, to call it out, to change it, to change the system, to change the toxic culture that allows this to happen.”
Organiser Krystyna Schweizer told Sunraysia Daily she was inspired to take action after seeing so much coverage of sexual assault and harassment in the media.
“Christian Porter’s alleged accusation and Brittany Higgins really lit a fuse with the women of Australia,” she said.
“More needs to be done.
“Women have had enough.”
A petition citing March4Justice protestors’ demands was delivered to Dr Webster’s office at the conclusion of the gathering.
Nationwide call to action
The Mildura protest joined other March4Justice events in cities and towns across the country calling for action of women’s safety issues.
Organisers outlined their key demands ahead of Monday’s protests, calling on the government to confront sexism and gendered violence.
Demands directed at the government included investigating gendered violence within parliament, standing down politicians who perpetrate violence, creating a code of conduct for federal MPs to include prevention of gendered violence, mandating annual sexual harassment and violence training for MPs and staff and conducting a gender equity audit of parliaments, with a goal of ensuring all Australian parliaments are gender equal by 2030.
Organisers also demanded stronger rules targeting workplace harassment.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to attend a rally in Canberra, where thousands gathered on the lawns of Parliament House.
Mr Morrison offered to meet March4Justice delegates after the rally, but organisers rejected the offer, saying a meeting with just three women was not enough.
“We have already come to the front door, now it’s up to the government to cross the threshold and come to us,” March4Justice founder Janine Hendry said.
“We will not be meeting behind closed doors.”
– with AAP
