Joint Sessional Committee Gender, Gender-based Violence and Equality
Legislative Council, Tuesday 18 August 2026
Ms FORREST (Murchison) – Mr President, I move –
That the terms of reference for the Joint Sessional Committee on Gender and Equality, as previously agreed to by resolutions of both Houses, be varied as follows:
- In the introductory paragraph, inserting “, Gender-based Violence” after “Sessional Gender”; and
- By leaving out paragraph (1) and inserting instead:
“(1) (a) Any Bill referred to it by either House in order to examine gender, gender-based violence and equality impacts and any such Bill so referred shall be reported upon within 10 sitting days of its referral;
(b) Any matter related to gender, gender-based violence and equality referred to it by either House; and
(c) Any matter related to gender, gender-based violence and equality, initiated by its own motion; and”.
This will be a relatively short and straightforward contribution. By way of explanation, the Gender Equality Committee is a sessional committee that’s been re established each session of parliament since it was first established. I’m really grateful that it has been reestablished. It’s a really important committee that has done some important work in the past. Currently, we don’t have a reference before the committee, but we’re also aware that after the last election there was a joint committee proposed from the other place in relation to family and sexual violence, and that sat on our notice paper since it arrived here in September 2025. The reason that it sat there is because we’ve been unable to fill committee positions because there are few of us in this House, 9 in total, who can sit on these types of committees and there’s a lot of other members in the other place who have more time and capacity to do so.
When this came forward, I know it was part of the agreement with the government and staying in power and all of that, when I consider the issue of family domestic and sexual violence, in my mind, it fits neatly under the Gender and Equality Committee in any event. I personally didn’t think we actually needed to alter the terms of reference to capture it, but I understand there’s a strong preference from committee service organisations and other organisations that work in this space to see it named up. If the absence of progressing another joint standing committee that needs to have secretariat support, that needs to have membership and all that goes with that, to me it makes sense that the easiest way to address this and make it really clear this committee has the capacity to look at matters related to family and sexual violence, that we name it up in the title of the Gender and Inequality Committee.
That’s what the purpose of this is, to simply, I say simply do that, but it’s not a simple thing we’re talking about. We all know the terrible scourge that family and sexual violence is in the whole of the country, not just here. In my time here, I don’t believe there’s ever been a dedicated inquiry into that. There were nothing sent from any member writing to the Gender and Equality Committee asking them to consider a reference, but that hasn’t happened to date but perhaps making it really clear that this is within the remit of the gender inequality committee with a rename to include family and sexual violence, which to me and most people would agree is agenda related matter predominantly, that it’s appropriate.
It doesn’t diminish the role of that committee, it doesn’t remove in my view the the desire from the members in the other place who put forward this joint committee in the other place. This is probably the most effective way to ensure that this is a matter subject to family domestic and sexual violence is subject to the scrutiny of the committee because there are so many problems in this space. Now, we have the minister responsible for the prevention of family and sexual violence in our House, which is really great, even though it’s a pretty big load to carry. We also know there’s so many challenges in this space in the approaches that are taking and there’s calls federally for royal commissions into this area. I’m six of one, half a dozen on that.
We know what some of the problems are, we have to have the funding and the resources to deal with it. Every time we see another report in the newspaper of some sort of family or sexual violence. I’m not going to cast any aspersions on this because it’s obviously a matter for the police at the moment, but we’ve just seen yesterday an AFL football team being embroiled in allegations of sexual abuse in Melbourne overnight when they were staying there after a game. It really is a massive challenge. If anyone of you have read The Boys’ Club you’ll know that it talks about this horrific culture that has pervaded the AFL. We mustn’t look away from this and the AFL mustn’t look away from that either. If you haven’t read the book, read it because it’s – Michael Warner wrote it, a sports journalist for The Australian.
From my perspective, this is a relatively simple, straightforward request to include family and gender-based sexual violence in the Gender and Equality Committee’s remit. It’ll be up to that committee, should that happen, whether that receives a reference from the parliament or from a member or the committee itself resolves undertaking an inquiry into this area. I urge members to support it. I believe it makes sense and solves one problem by using a mechanism we already have.
Ms FORREST (Murchison) – I appreciate the contributions of members in expressing their views. I acknowledge that it is not the preferred option for a number of members, just as, when it was first proposed, it was not the preferred option of some of the service providers in the space. But what’s critically important here is these issues of family and gender-based violence, domestic violence and sexual violence, are recognised as the national crisis they are, and treated as such. Not just the deaths. The deaths are one thing, and as horrific and life-altering for those families as they are, there are many women and children living in very unsafe circumstances. Sometimes because of a lack of housing, or for a whole range of reasons. We hear about walking on egg shells in a controlling, coercive relationship, where there may not be any physical violence, but sometimes the first act of violence is murder. It’s something that we can’t look away from, and we need to keep it at the forefront of policymakers, governments and the public conscience. Because if we don’t, these terrible lived experiences are often not fully understood and not recognised. It’s much bigger than the number of deaths, as absolutely tragic as they are. We need to be intervening well before we get to that point.
I acknowledge it’s not the preferred option from the outset, but I believe this is a sensible response. What is critically important in this is the public exposure of this issue, and through a committee process it does enable that public exposure. I was one member who did not put my hand up for that committee, and I want to make that really clear. I don’t believe I could have fitted another committee in. I’m already on the Gender and Equality Committee, as well as many others. In fairness to all members in this Chamber, people make their own decisions and have their own reasons why they can’t be on this or that committee. It’s not like a lot of us in this place aren’t pulling our weight. We are.
While it’s disappointing that this one couldn’t be established in its own right, I believe we also need to be using the mechanisms we have available to us to get the best outcome. From my perspective, the best outcome here is that this issue is subject to more public inquiry, more exposure of the reality, more public ventilation of the reality. Then, hopefully, the government response and interaction with the committee will show us a path forward. It is important to acknowledge the work being done federally, too. I know there is a large body of work being done; the minister herself with her counterparts in other states and territories is involved on that.
In my view, with the workload of many of the members in this place, this is the most expeditious way to get this work done, or at least started. It is never going to be done – well, hopefully it will be done one day, but in our lifetime I think that’s unlikely. It’s a bit easier to sit in the House of Assembly, where they have increased the number of members, with a much-expanded backbench and lots of crossbenchers. We didn’t increase our size here; we’ve still got the same number of members with more committees than ever. There are limitations for us individually and there are limitations for our staff as well in supporting those committees.
This is a matter I care deeply about. I have been actively involved in this space in the past.
I want to reflect on the member for Pembroke’s comments. I thank you for standing, taking the call and making those comments. I appreciate that you’re also on the Gender and Equality Committee; from our House, you’re the only man. I’m not sure who the membership is from downstairs, but you may be the only man. The former member for Huon was the only man at one stage. That said, we have had a few come and go from downstairs, but we do need male champions on this, and I acknowledge the member for Pembroke’s comment about the difficulty some men face in knowing how to participate in this discussion and debate. I remember speaking to a group of young men up at the Cradle Coast campus of UTAS during Law Week. We were talking about law reform in a range of areas, but there was this group of young guys there, and I could see them sort of engaged in the topic we were talking about. Afterwards, I spoke to a few of them. During the session I’d said to them, ‘I appreciate it must be really difficult for you young guys not knowing what’s OK anymore’. Like the rules seem to keep changing for young guys and young men, from the topic we were talking about. I went and spoke to them afterwards and said that the fact it’s sometimes more difficult for young men to know how to respond to this is a reason to do this work. It’s through doing this work that we understand what some of the barriers are to men’s participation in the solution. It is a big and important part of the solution, but we can’t just expect men to know exactly what to do, just as we can’t expect all women to know exactly what to do, because we don’t.
It is going to take a broad response to address this. But we need to keep it in the public view, talking about it, making sure people don’t brush an episode of family or sexual violence under the carpet or diminish it in any way such that it becomes, ‘Oh, it’s not that important’. It is important, and the lack of gender equality, and the lack of respect, are the basis for so much of this gender violence. Mustn’t forget that.
I thank members for their contribution, and I’m sure there’ll be a meeting of the Gender Equality Committee not too soon after this goes downstairs.
Motion agreed to.