I rise today to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Family Violence, Stalking and Other Matters) Bill 2025. As a former shadow minister for family violence, this is unfortunately something that I have had to hear about too much. I have spoken on these types of issues many times in this place, and it gets no easier on each occasion.
There are significant issues which we are facing in Victoria which have been occurring at an increasing rate where women do not feel safe. This is on the back of some horrific and very high profile murders and stalking and mistreatment of women, and they do not feel safe on the streets of Melbourne. They are followed into an area where there is nobody around and come to an untimely death – a horrific death, a death which often involves sexual violence.
Unfortunately, there are far too many instances of this. One instance would be bad enough. I think that this feeling is rippling throughout the Victorian community, where I hear so frequently now that women are not comfortable going out for a walk or a run – particularly around the streets of Melbourne, but it happens in regional Victoria as well – because they do not know what will happen to them. They are worried about somebody waiting for them, somebody following them and there not being support available to intervene in time. It is impacting on the lives of every Victorian woman, not just on their psychological and mental health but also their physical health, because they have a fear of going outdoors.
For me, this hits quite hard because this year I have had somebody who has taken an escalating amount of interest in my activities and my location. I can share with the house that it scared the life out of me when I received a phone call from my partner that the person who had been sending me relentless emails was waiting on the side of the road between my home and my child’s school at a time when he was going to school – at drop-off time. I have been walking down the street with one of my children and seen this person, and we have had to carefully curate walking on the other side of the road, hiding behind cars and trees so that I am not seen. This is an unfair and unsafe situation.
It is not just me and my position. It is something that every Victorian woman has felt at some point in time: unwelcome contact, unwelcome leers, stepping over that line, being too close, trying to form a relationship and putting pressure on a woman because she does not want to be part of that situation. There are insufficient protections in place for women in those scenarios, and I know that because I am one of those women who has been in that position and not felt protected. While I believe that I am strong enough and smart enough to be able to keep an eye out and avoid those situations, I never want to be in a position where my children are at risk because the laws are not keeping up with what we need to see to protect women and children in this state.
For me, this is something I have lived with, so it shakes me to my core, but I cannot imagine the fear of other women who have walked those footsteps and come to a tragic end. I am sure there will be some reflection and debate on some of the more high-profile cases that have been noteworthy and about which we have spoken directly in this place. We all know what happened in the tragic ending of Jill Meagher’s life. She was walking home and was followed home, and in the most inexplicable and unacceptable way her life was ended by somebody who was on the sex offenders register. She was followed home. Then in 2018 there was Eurydice Dixon, about whom I spoke in this place. I was the Shadow Minister for Women at the time. It was a tragic ending – leaving a comedy show, catching a tram home, being followed and then being raped and murdered in a Melbourne parkland.
While I understand that these reforms are necessary, they have been necessary for a very long time. It is unfair for any Victorian woman to feel like she has to go it alone and that she has not got support behind her. While in this place we hear many times that there will be a strengthening of different laws so that this will not happen again, time and time again we hear the same scenarios arising.
We hear that calls are made to 000 and there is not an ability to respond within a timeframe that provides safety and security for that individual. As I mentioned at the top of my contribution, there are women who are changing their behaviours and spending more time isolated at home than doing what we expect them, young women in particular, to be able to do: go out and live their life, spend time with their friends, have a good time and make those memories that form part of the fabric of our personality and how we engage with other people, perhaps even go out and find a loved one – for a short time or maybe a lifelong partner. Women are losing their right in Victoria to do that, because they do not feel safe.
I made an announcement a number of years ago with the member for Brighton which was around stalking laws and particularly in relation to Celeste Manno, who met an untimely demise when she knew somebody was fixated on her, was stalking her. She was murdered in her own home. It is something that should never happen. For the family then to have to grieve their daughter in a way that they feel like it could have been prevented is something that mentally scars them for life. It is something that is unfathomable in many ways, but unfortunately if people think they will get away with it, they will do that. We cannot predict how people will behave, what their motivations are and what their actions will be, and women, because they cannot predict that and they do not feel safe, are staying at home more and more often. This has a serious impact on the mental health of Victorian women. It has a serious impact on the fabric of everything else in our community – of seeing people out and about in a park, which of course provides an extra level of security if you are going for a walk, and that additional vibrancy in our towns and our cities, with people happy to go out for dinner, go out to the pub or go to a concert and have a good time without fear. That is something we should be striving for again in Victoria.
I note that while this legislation implements some of the recommendations that were made by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in regard to their investigation into stalking in non-family violence settings, it does not implement all recommendations. There is still much work to be done. These recommendations were handed down in September 2022. Three years later we are implementing two of the 45 recommendations. There is a lot more work to be done, and I urge the government to bring forward those recommendations as quickly as possible.
We have had recommendations arising from the Royal Commission into Family Violence. We have had these recommendations put forward by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. We need to listen and to look at the evidence – of the women who cannot contribute to the structure of this legislation because they are no longer with us today and of women who cannot contribute to this conversation for fear of engaging with the wider community. While I support these recommendations, I urge the government to do more, to do more quickly, and make sure every Victorian woman feels safe living their life outside of the home in the wider community.