22-24 MARCH 2004 ,,, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
Four Australian feminists, all members of the f-agenda email discussion list, descended on Parliament House, Canberra, on Monday 22 March to begin three days of intensive lobbying on behalf of Australian women. The following is a detailed report of the action sponsored by f-agenda members and carried out under the chosen name WomenAustralia. [NOTE: It has since been confirmed that the name ‘Women Australia’ is used by the National Foundation for Australian Women. We will, therefore, choose another name for future actions].
LEAD-UP TO THE ACTION
History. On 9 January 2004, discussion on the f-agenda list resulted in the following suggestion from one of our members:
What f-agenda needs to do, I think, is nominate one or two women from each State to form a delegation to go to Canberra and have a meeting with Mark Latham and Jenny Macklin. We need to do careful planning beforehand re the issues we want to raise, put in a request for a meeting stipulating the amount of time we'd like to spend with them and, then, head off to Canberra at the appointed time.
This was immediately seized upon by several members as an idea we ought to act on. And so began the process of exploring the feasibility of involving ourselves in such an action. What issues would we focus on? Who would go to Canberra as our delegates? How would we finance the action? What “contacts” did list-members have and how might we use them to ensure we had the best advice in developing our strategies?
Aim. Our main aim was to meet with the Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham. We also wanted to meet with Shadow Attorney General and Shadow Minister for Women, Nicola Roxon, and various other women and men from the ALP. Also, we wanted to meet with Natasha Stott Despoja (Australian Democrats) and Kerry Nettle (The Greens), two women whose stand on issues for women we respect.
The decision not to seek meetings with Prime Minister John Howard or any other Coalition MPs was made on the basis of their having presided over the systematic silencing of women and women’s groups since they came to power in 1996. It was felt that meetings with them would simply be a waste of time.
Issues. List-members were invited to suggest the kinds of issues we ought to consider taking to Canberra. The choice was: to go with a long list of women’s issues and touch briefly on each of them, or to choose a few issues and present them in more detail. All list-members who offered an opinion chose the latter option.
From the following list:
. Domestic and family violence (including a commitment to re-fund WESNET)
. Family Court issues : abuse-free contact, joint custody inquiry, etc.
. The criminalisation of women (poverty-related crimes)
. Law reform re sexual abuse of children
. The situation of refugee and asylum seeker women and children
. Free trade agreements, globalisation and their effect on women
. Australia's International image - reinstating our commitment to UN conventions
. Health issues for women
. Meaningful reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
. Support for the work of the National Women's Justice Coalition
. The right to adequate and safe housing
. Pornography, prostitution, trafficking, sexual abuse.
we chose:
1. Domestic and family violence (including a commitment to re-fund WESNET)
2. Family Court issues : abuse-free contact, joint custody inquiry, etc.
3. The criminalisation of women (poverty-related crimes)
4. Law reform re sexual abuse of women and children
5. Health issues for women.
Choosing our Delegates. It turned out that delegates and, therefore, the short-list of issues, chose themselves. The following women, each of whom had demonstrated expertise in her chosen field, volunteered to be part of the team:
Betty McLellan offered to go in a kind of facilitator role and, also, to raise issues concerning the health and wellbeing of women and children;
Veronica Wensing was nominated by WESNET to raise issues of Domestic and Family Violence;
Debbie Kilroy offered to go representing Sisters Inside, Inc., to raise issues around the criminalisation of women due to poverty;
Marie Hume offered to go, in relation to her involvement with the National Abuse Free Contact campaign, to raise issues around the need for a more adequate Family Law response which would ensure the safety of women and children escaping domestic violence;
Caroline Taylor offered to go to raise issues around the need for a more adequate Criminal Law response to sexual violence against women and children.
Each of the above volunteers had demonstrated expertise in her chosen area. Therefore, in the absence of other volunteers, f-agenda members’ task of choosing delegates was made simple. [It must be said that members would not have endorsed any woman solely on the basis of her own offer to be a delegate. Each delegate was to have expertise and experience in at least one of the areas f-agenda members considered to be urgent feminist/women’s issues.] The above volunteers were endorsed and began their own discussions about how to proceed.
Financing the Action. Many f-agenda members felt “ownership” of the action and began to make offers of $100 and $50 donations to defray expenses, with some adding: “Let me know if you need more”. Realising that money is tight for many of us these days, this level of generosity was overwhelming.
Four of the delegates were successful in receiving a degree of sponsorship from Institutions they are associated with:
Betty McLellan, Queensland Women’s Health Network, Inc. (airfare)
Debbie Kilroy, Sisters Inside, Inc. (airfare and accommodation)
Caroline Taylor, University of Ballarat (travel and accommodation)
Veronica Wensing received significant in-kind support from Toora Women Inc., to use paid time to attend the meetings and participate in the lead-up teleconferences.
The practical support of these Agencies was much appreciated as was their expressed confidence in our delegates’ ability to present the issues effectively.
Contacts and Advice. Because our main aim was to meet with Mark Latham, some of our members agreed to discuss our pending action with contacts/friends in the Labor Party, who offered various pieces of advice:
. Go sooner rather than later. The closer we get to the Federal Election, the busier Party leaders (and all other politicians) will become, so “go early” or risk missing out.
. Be very well prepared and present in a professional manner.
. Be cautious about using the “f” word in our request for meetings.
. Take a one-page synopsis of each presentation to leave with the politicians or their advisers. Politicians don’t have time to read long papers.
. Mark Latham “respects” statistics, so be sure to include research and statistics to back up your assertions and requests. Any research papers can be left with advisers so that they are available for reference purposes.
. Try to get appointments with key members of the Labor Party and, also, representatives of the Greens and the Australian Democrats.
....The Crucial Contact! The most significant contact of all was that made by Debbie Kilroy at a meeting attended by Mark Latham in Brisbane at the end of January 2004. Debbie made a point of approaching Mark, telling him that a delegation of women would be seeking a meeting with him in Canberra in the near future and asking if he would make himself available. Without hesitation, he made a commitment to meet with us! With that commitment secured, we were able to move ahead confidently with our preparations. A big “thank you” to Debbie.
[NOTE: Sadly, the pressure of work and other commitments caused Debbie Kilroy to have to abandon plans to be part of the delegation. The team to go to Canberra was, then, reduced to four.]
Setting up meetings. Since our primary reason for travelling to Canberra was to meet with the Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, we knew we had to secure a date for that meeting before dates and times of meetings with other politicians could be confirmed. Finally, after several emails and phonecalls back and forth, the time of 4pm Monday 22 March 2004 was offered by Mark Latham’s adviser, Maree Edwards, through Nicola Roxon’s adviser, Chris Black. The offer was for a 30-minute meeting. We accepted.
The following meetings were then scheduled:
Monday 22 March
4.30 pm Nicola Roxon
6.15 pm Dinner with ALP women
8.00 pm ALP Status of Women committee
Tuesday 23 March
3.30 pm Kerry Nettle (The Greens)
Wednesday 24 March
11.00 am Natasha Stott Despoja (Australian Democrats)
Letter of Introduction. The following letter of introduction was prepared and emailed to respective advisers and/or politicians following phone or email contact to set up meetings:
Four representatives of our group, Women Australia, will be making a visit to Canberra between 22 and 24 March for the express purpose of speaking with politicians about issues of utmost importance to women and to the wellbeing of our Nation. I am writing, now, to confirm our meeting with you on (date and time).
We have prepared brief presentations on the following issues:
The following is a brief introduction to our delegates:
2. Veronica Wensing, from Canberra. Representative and former National Executive Officer of Women's Services Network (WESNET), a national women's peak advocacy body working towards prevention and elimination of domestic and family violence. Board Member of the National Women's Justice Coalition (NWJC). Founding Member of the Women's History Month Steering committee. Extended Collective member of Beryl Women's Refuge and current Management Team member of Toora Women Inc.
4. Dr. Caroline Taylor, from Melbourne. Member of the Victorian Law Reform Commission Advisory Group on Sexual Offences. Recently appointed to the Victoria Police Review Panel to review the Police Code of Practice for Investigating Sexual Offences. Also on the Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault Consultative Committee and an executive member of the Western Chapter of the Australasian Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Ballarat and has published extensively on issues associated with sexual offences against women and children.
Yours sincerely,
Each delegate prepared her own presentation and emailed it to the other three for comment. Then, each presentation was emailed to the f-agenda list.
In addition to the presentations, each delegate prepared a 1-2 page synopsis to be left after each meeting. One example of a one-page synopsis is that prepared by Veronica.
The Media Release, which follows, was also sent to Mark Latham’s office and physically distributed at the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Parliament House by the delegates.
“There has been a resurgence of concern among women in recent times in regards to women’s safety. We’ve had the Howard government’s axing of the $2.7 million advertising campaign to combat domestic violence, the trafficking of women for sex and the recent issue of ‘male bonding’ through the gang rape of women”, said Dr Betty McLellan, “enough is enough.”
“At least 23% of women in Australia have experienced domestic or family violence, and as the latest ABS figures point out, this accounts for 2.2 million women. Current data also shows that 56,100 women accessed a refuge in 02-03 and 53,700 children were accommodated. These figures don’t include the turnaways of 4,354 women with children. Reports also show that somewhere between 80% - 95% of women who experience domestic or family violence do not access help from any service”, said Veronica Wensing.
“Another startling statistic is that 1 in 3 girls and women have experienced some form of sexual violence so far in their lives and out of these victims, only 1 in 10 will ever report their sexual victimisation. This shows the lack of confidence these women have in the police and judicial system”, added Dr Caroline Taylor.
“We are meeting with Mr Latham for the purpose of getting a commitment from him towards women’s issues. We want him to recognise the importance of these issues and that we need to do something about them now. We want him to have a better track record than John Howard” continued Ms Hume.
For further information please contact:
Sense of Purpose. On the phone and in emails, delegates articulated our growing excitement and sense of purpose as the time for the Canberra visit drew near. We were women on a mission - and it was exciting!
Ready for Action: ..Veronica .. .. Betty .. ..Caroline ..Marie
THE ACTION
Monday 22 March
11.00 am Caroline went to the ABC studios where she was interviewed about her research for the following day’s “Life Matters” programme on ABC Radio National.
3.00 pm Media. Betty was interviewed by Mike Welsh, Canberra Commercial Radio 2CC.
Full Schedule
Monday 22 March
Tuesday 23 March
Wednesday 24 March
The Meetings
This meeting went exceptionally well. We were nervous because we were very aware of the heavy responsibility we had taken on. We were there not only as representatives of the wonderful feminist women on the f-agenda and elsa lists but also as representatives of Australian women who desperately needed the future to be better than the past eight years had been (since the Howard Government came to power).
We started with Betty’s introduction, followed by Veronica, then Marie, then Caroline. At the end, Mark seemed to have a comment on something from each of our presentations. His comments included: an exclamation about Veronica's statistic that 25% of children have witnessed violence against their mother or step-mother. He was genuinely surprised that DV was affecting so many Australian children (which only goes to show that they're not very "up" on the literature about women’s and children's lives!).
Caroline, as the last speaker, had to rush her presentation because Mark had already been reminded of his next meeting, but she made some very important points which seemed to get his attention. For example, he expressed surprise when Caroline quoted findings of a Sexual Assault survey showing the high propensity for young males to believe that physical and sexual violence against women and girls was OK in certain circumstances. Also, he showed surprise at the 1 in 3 statistic she quoted.
Feedback we received from Mark’s adviser a couple of days later was that he had responded very favourably to our visit and she was hopeful that our presentations would have some influence on the formulation of Labor Party policies in the areas we focused on.
Nicola invited us to her office where we debriefed after the meeting with Mark, discussed the issues further, made reference to our desire to work with and be a support to the women in Parliament and looked at follow-up strategies.
Nicola made it clear that she was very pleased our group had made the effort to send a delegation to speak with them and asked us to give some thought to how the Labor Party could make these issues palatable in an election campaign.
6.15 pm Dinner with ALP women.
8.00 pm ALP Status of Women committee.
We made our presentations to this Status of Women committee so that they knew the kinds of issues we had raised with Mark Latham and would raise with other politicians over the next couple of days. After a brief discussion, the meeting closed at 9pm. Trish Crossin, Chair of the committee, then asked us to meet with her in her office where we discussed the issues in more detail.
Trish Crossin, Palmerston, N.T.
Tuesday 23 March
11.00 am Arrived Parliament House. Met by Cora from Senator Jan McLucas’s office, as arranged, and had the use of Jan’s office for the day.
We gave abbreviated presentations. We had been told that Anthony was on-side with the kinds of issues we were there to discuss and he didn’t disappoint us. He is genuinely concerned for the safety of women and children in the home and the community. Also, he recounted examples of the negative treatment meted out to women by the court system and agreed that there is an urgent need for change.
12.30 pm Discussion with Jan McLucas. Jan let us know that she was very pleased our group had decided to descend on Canberra. She said she had hoped women’s groups and Indigenous groups would begin letting their voices be heard around Parliament House again.
3.30 pm Meeting with Kerry Nettle (Greens), NSW
5.15 pm Media. Betty did a phone interview with ABC local radio, Townsville.
This was a difficult meeting in many ways. Lindsay was quite defensive in some of his responses. He clearly sees the “crisis of masculinity” as a crisis in terms of blue-collar working men being displaced and that the ALP in government will need to focus on the needs of those men and of boys. We tried to get him to expand his thinking and see the violence of men as an issue which needed to be addressed in its own right. We were surprised that his mind seemed to be closed to some of our issues.
In relation to Family Court issues, Lindsay let us know that he was a non-custodial father. When Marie talked about our concern about the attitudes of Father’s Rights groups, he expressed the opinion that there were maybe a “couple of bad apples” but that most of them were OK. Right at the end of our time with him, we discovered that he had to rush off to a meeting in relation to the joint custody inquiry. The discovery that he was in a prime position to influence policies in this area, spurred us on to raise issues as we followed him out the door! One remark that worried us quite considerably went something like this: “It’s hard to prove that a man’s been violent to his partner or children. Sometimes they’re just accusations”. We were quite alarmed by this attitude and made a point of conveying our concerns to subsequent Labor members with whom we met.
Wednesday 24 March
9.15 am Met at Marble Stairs, Parliament House.
Jenny welcomed us warmly and, while our presentations were less formal because we knew Jenny’s views on the issues were similar to our own, we were pleased to be able to raise the issues and prompt a very satisfying discussion. She congratulated us on our efforts and told us to keep it up!
Wayne took control of the meeting in the beginning and talked about poverty and institutional inequalities. We were agreeing with him until he appeared to link rape, child sexual abuse and domestic violence to poverty. Caroline put him straight! She made the important point that the recent revelations about footballers raping and gang-raping women was not about financially poor men but about highly paid and high status men raping women.
11.00 am Meeting with Senator Natasha Stott Despoja (Australian Democrats), SA.
We began our discussions with reference to the headlines in The Adelaide Advertiser which reported: “A man who shot his estranged wife dead after a long-running dispute over access to their daughter has been acquitted of all charges - and plans to seek custody of the child”. This was a perfect example of the issues Marie had been raising and highlighted the need for the government to give urgent attention to ensuring the safety of women and children.
Our discussion with Natasha was mutually helpful and very satisfying. She gave the impression that she was willing to take on any issues that we, or others, wished to raise with her in the future.
After giving brief presentations of our issues to Anthony, he explained that he had only become aware of the desperate situation some women and children are in when a woman in his electorate was killed by her partner. Since then, he has been a consistent advocate for a better deal for women. He has written opinion-pieces in newspapers, spoken out against the “blackshirts” and other Fathers’ Rights groups and generally tried to influence societal attitudes.
12.30 pm Caroline had to leave to drive back to Melbourne but not before she had another meeting with her local politician, Catherine King. Catherine has agreed to make mention of our visit in Parliament so that our efforts are recorded in Hansard (for posterity!). Great!!
Carmen was rushing to prepare a speech for the afternoon session of Parliament but took about 10 minutes off to talk with Marie, Veronica and Betty in the reception area of her office. As always, Carmen was totally on-side and let us know that she was very pleased to see our group taking action and fronting up to politicians with these crucial issues.
FOLLOW-UP TO THE ACTION
Nicola Roxon, during our meeting with her, made a point of impressing on us the importance of following up our visit with a letter reiterating the points we made. In discussions among ourselves over the three days, delegates came up with the following suggestions for follow-up action:
. Mark Latham, Leader of the Opposition,
. Trish Crossin, Chair of the ALP Status of Women Committee
Dear Mr Latham,
1. We call for work towards cultural change at a broad level that promotes equality and respect for women and regards women as citizens of equal worth. This upholds Australia’s obligations under international covenants to which it is a signatory, which promote women’s rights as human rights. We advocate for equal opportunity for women’s participation in national and international decision-making and urge the Labor government to sign the Optional Protocol to CEDAW as a matter of priority once it is in power.
2. We ask you to promote a zero tolerance approach to violence against women
and children in the private and the public spheres. This involves an integrated
approach which includes the criminal justice system, the family law system
and the broader community.
3. We ask that you prioritise issues of safety for women and children and recognise that homes need to be places of safety for women and children. We remind you that one in four Australian children have witnessed violence perpetrated against their mother or step-mother and ask that you develop policies which guard children against having to witness or experience this violence.
As a male in a
powerful position in this country, we have an expectation that you and other
men in positions of power will stand up and say no to violence against women
in all its forms and that you will do this at every opportunity, because men
listen to men. We support promotion of healthy and positive male role modelling
for the development of respectful relationships.
4. We ask for a community awareness strategy to be developed to promote respectful
and non-violent relationships in order to not only address the problem, but
to reduce costs associated with responses to domestic violence after it has
occurred.
5. We ask that you consider the amendments that have been made to the New
Zealand Guardianship Act which prioritise the rights of children to safety
in family law matters. This includes use of a rebuttable presumption of no
contact where there is violence.
6. We ask that you address necessary law reform in relation to all levels
of the criminal justice response to child and adult sexual abuse with a particular
focus on law reform issues that have been recognised and documented as discriminatory,
such as the High Court's reinforcement of the corroboration warning as a standard
warning to be given in all sexual offence trials, regardless of context; and
the continual subverting of legislation designed to curb cross examination
of women and children around their alleged sexual history. The introduction
of sexual history evidence and the application of the corroboration warning
have been identified consistently in research across Australia, as a significant
barrier to fair treatment of victim/survivors in sexual offence proceedings
and has been recognised as discriminatory and sexist.
7. We remind you that you can use women and women’s organisations to
inform policy development and trust that you will avail yourself of the opportunity
for ongoing dialogue with Women Australia and other women’s organisations
with which we are involved or with whom we have contact.
Once again, we thank you for the opportunity to meet with you and look forward to seeing the Labor Party’s Policy Platform giving priority to the safety of women and children.
Yours sincerely,
B. Produce a form letter which f-agenda and elsa list-members can use to send to their local politicians informing them of our visit to Canberra and of the issues we raised.
D. Encourage individual members to write letters to the editor about these issues on a regular basis.
E. Write up the ACTION in detail and post it on the feministagenda website so that interested members of f-agenda and elsa will have ready access to it. Also, it is hoped that, by writing it up in detail, our Canberra action will serve as one “model” of political action on women’s issues.
The four of us who were privileged to go as delegates found the whole experience exciting and exhilarating (even if somewhat exhausting!). We worked very well together and were pleased with the way we fed off each other to bring the issues together in a convincing and professional manner. A bond quickly developed between us, and our respect for each other’s commitment and ability to present the issues clearly and concisely grew stronger over the three days.