MEMBER for Mildura Ali Cupper and Mildura gender equality councillor Helen Healy both delivered impassioned speeches at a Women’s March 4 Justice protest on Monday.
Mildura’s rally, held outside federal MP Anne Webster’s Eighth Street office, was among dozens of gatherings held across Australia to protest against unacceptable treatment of women in the workplace and the community, and assert the right of women to feel safe.
Speaking at the protest, 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 March 4 Justice events came after the Federal Government faced allegations of the rape of a former Liberal staff member by a colleague and rape allegations dating to 1988 levelled against Attorney-General Christian Porter — allegations Mr Porter has strongly denied.
Ms Cupper called on 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 men 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 the gathering that her passion for the March 4 Justice campaign had a very personal source.
“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 March 4 Justice protestors’ demands was delivered to Dr Webster’s office at the end of the gathering.
In a statement, Dr Webster said it was “a sad indictment on our culture” that the protests were necessary.
“The fact that one in four women in Australia will suffer some form of sexual assault is unacceptable,” she said.
“This is not a political issue, it’s a human issue. We must do better and now is the time.
“We need to seriously look at the culture of parliament, as well as every workplace in Australia.”
Dr Webster, who attended the Canberra protest, apologised for her absence from Mildura’s march and said she would present the petition to Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack.
“The government is working to address the issues raised in the petition,” she said.
The Mildura protest was one of many March 4 Justice events in cities and towns across the country calling for action on women’s safety.
Organisers outlined their key demands before Monday’s protests, calling on governments to confront sexism and gendered violence.
The demands included investigating gendered violence in parliament, standing down politicians who perpetrated 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.
