‘Tired of empty promises’: Powerful women join forces for change

A campaign has been launched ahead of the federal election demanding action from leaders on the treatment and safety of women, after a year of talking about the need for change.

A dozen female leaders including Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins issued a letter to Australians and a video on Sunday saying it was time to end injustice and inequality.

Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame at the National Press Club in February.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Australia, we need to talk,” Ms Tame, the former Australian of the Year, says in starting the video.

She is joined by Ms Higgins, businesswomen Lucy Turnbull, Christine Holgate and Wendy McCarthy, Paralympian Madison de Rozario, youth activists Yasmin Poole and Chanel Contos, former MP Julia Banks, union leader Michele O’Neil, academic and Indigenous advocate Larissa Behrendt, and early childhood advocate Georgie Dent.

They released the video on the eve of International Women’s Day calling for nine steps to address persistent inequality in Australia.

They said 2021 was not the first year women were harassed, unsafe, ignored or disrespected, but it was different because more Australians started to listen to those who spoke up.

“The more people listened, the more familiar the story became,” Ms Holgate says in the video.

Women had been calling for change for decades and now was the time for action, she said on Sunday. “There have been countless reviews, inquiries, promises, conferences and bodies established to assess and report on the inequity and injustice women face, but there has been no meaningful change.”

Ms Tame echoed this, saying there had been too many reviews, reports and talk-fests, and it was time for leaders “to get to work, stop the abuse of power and bring about real change”.

One in five women in Australia have been sexually assaulted or raped, and two in five have been sexually harassed in the workplace. The statistics are worse for Indigenous women, women of colour, or those with a disability or who are LGBTQI.

Ms Poole said these were confronting and disturbing statistics.

Last month, Ms Higgins told the National Press Club that in the year since she spoke out and the March4Justice was held, too little had changed. She feared the transformative potential of the movement, sparked by women’s anger, would end up being little more than a blip on the political radar.

Ms Dent said on Sunday the informal group behind the new campaign was drawn together by a sense of collective anger and frustration at a lack of progress in improving respect and safety for women.

“We are tired of empty promises,” she said.

Chanel Contos, Lucy Turnbull, Julia Banks and Christine Holgate are among the women behind the new campaign.Credit: James Brickwood

The group wants all recommendations from the Respect@Work report on ending workplace harassment implemented, stronger and consistent child sexual assault laws, and action on the national plan for First Nations women and girls, the Wiyi Yani U Thangani report.

It also wants 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave and expanded paid parental leave legislated; the gender pay gap eliminated; effective employment programs for women with disability; free, accessible and quality childcare; and education about respectful relationships and consent embedded everywhere including schools, universities, workplaces and homes.

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