CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Ms KEARNEY (Cooper—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence) (10:13): Last month I had the privilege of supporting the Building Bridges Forum at the historic Aborigines Advancement League in Thornbury. Hosted by Women's Health in the North and the Northern Integrated Family Violence Services, the forum brought together frontline family, domestic and sexual violence workers, advocates, researchers and people with lived experience to ask an important question: how do we build systems that work for every victim-survivor, and how do we make them as inclusive as they can be?

I'm so proud to have this kind of leadership in my electorate of Cooper, because we know that there is no single experience of family, domestic and sexual violence. We know that our communities are rich with diversity and intersectionality. Gender inequality can intersect with racism, homophobia, transphobia, disability and economic disadvantage.

Too often the people facing the greatest barriers are also asked to navigate the most fragmented systems. As Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, I hear this across the country. Victims-survivors are repeating their trauma to service after service, courts and jurisdictions are failing to communicate and people are falling through gaps that simply should not exist.

Building Bridges reminded me that the solutions are already being designed in our communities. Organisations like Djirra, Elizabeth Morgan House, Zoe Belle Gender Collective, Project Respect and Safe and Equal bring extraordinary expertise to this work. As we develop the second action plan under our National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, we need that expertise at the table.

Our job isn't to make victims-survivors better at navigating broken systems; it is to build systems that work for them in the first place. This week is Women's Health Week. It's a chance to celebrate women and girls but also to talk honestly about the gaps that still exist in our health system.

For too long women have paid more, waited longer or simply been expected to put up with health conditions that profoundly affect their lives. Our government is changing that. Last year, we announced our landmark $800 million women's health package, delivering more choice, lower costs and better care at every stage of a woman's life.

And women are already seeing the difference. Since March last year, more than one million women have filled over four million cheaper prescriptions for contraception, menopause and endometriosis treatments, saving more than $150 million. More than 137,000 women now have access to dedicated menopause health assessment through Medicare.

We've opened 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics across Australia, now also supporting women experiencing menopause and perimenopause, and we've made IUDs and contraceptive implants cheaper and easier to access, saving some women up to $400 out of pocket. These are not niche health issues. They affect millions of Australian women.

Women's Health Week is about starting conversations, but women have been talking about these issues for decades, and I'm proud to be part of a government that listens.