Women’s March 4 Justice as it happened: Brittany Higgins addresses Parliament House crowd as thousands of women rally across Australia for gender equality

It’s been an emotional day. Thousands of women, men and children marched, rallied, cried and sang at more than 40 Women’s March 4 Justice rallies across the nation.

Their aim was to put the spotlight on gendered violence. They achieved that, and more. They also handed a petition addressed to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to the federal parliament today, requesting four immediate actions:

• Independent investigations into all cases of gendered violence.
• Fully implementing the 55 recommendations in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work report of the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces 2020.
• Lifting public funding for gendered violence prevention.
• A federal Gender Equality Act.

Early this morning, organisers of the protest rally rejected Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s invitation to meet privately in Parliament House after he declined to attend the Canberra rally in person.

And when the speeches came, they hit their mark. Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins made a surprise appearance in Canberra while Australian of the Year Grace Tame spoke passionately in Hobart.

Rally-goers unfurled a list of almost 900 women and children killed by male violence in Australia since 2008 in Melbourne.Credit: Justin McManus

In Melbourne, a list 30 metres long with nearly 900 names of the women and children killed by men since 2008 was unfurled in front of the crowd. Then after speeches by former MP Julia Bank and a host of others, a splinter group broke away from the official rally to protest outside Victoria’s Liberal Party headquarters.

There are still a handful of rallies to come this evening. And plenty more to say on the issue. As I write, our senior writers and editors are pulling together the reports and analysis of the day’s events. We’ll have plenty more for you to read on this issue on our website and in our papers tonight, tomorrow and over the next weeks and months.

But for now, it’s goodbye from us. Thank you for reading and take care of yourselves and loved ones.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, whose misogyny speech in Parliament House was once voted the most unforgettable moment in Australian TV history, has thrown her weight behind today’s Women’s March 4 Justice.

“Thanks to all at #March4Justice today for raising your voices against misogyny & violence against women,” she tweeted.

“I honour passion for action & courage of those who have spoken out.

“I hope today’s decision makers hear #enoughisenough & it’s time for lasting change & real justice.”

Ms Gillard reflected on the relentless sexism and misogyny that she weathered throughout her political career during a virtual lunch with our own Jewel Topsfield.

Victoria’s Minister for Women, Gabrielle Williams, attended Monday’s march and said the event proved women were no longer willing to be silent about the way sexual violence pervades their lives.

“What we’re seeing now is the community sending a message that they’re ready to have this conversation publicly. More than ready, they’re eager to have the conversation now,” she said.

Gabrielle Williams, Victoria’s Minister for Women, attended the Melbourne march today.Credit: Penny Stephens

“Obviously [the march] has been triggered by a series of events in Canberra, but it’s been latched onto because every woman has a story to tell, most of them tear-stained.

“I hope it brings these issues out into the light and brings a collective understanding of these issues … that then sees us take them more seriously.”

Ms Williams, 38, said there was a significant amount of work to be done to ensure workplaces were safe spaces for women.

“No workplace is immune from this … I could only think of one job I’d held since I was 15 where I wasn’t sexually harassed in some way, or where I wasn’t aware of others who had endured pretty awful treatment,” she said.

“Workplaces where there are power imbalances, where they tend to be more male dominated, probably have more entrenched issues.”

Earlier this month, the Andrews government announced it would launch a ministerial taskforce to consider whether employers should be forced to report all incidents of sexual harassment to Victoria’s workplace watchdog.

Speaker upon speaker stood on stages across the nation during more than 40 Women’s March 4 Justice rallies and described the atrocities they had been subjected to as women. Here’s a snapshot of what they said:

Canberra

Brittany Higgins, former political staffer and the victim of an alleged rape: “I watched as the Prime Minister of Australia publicly apologised to me through the media, while privately the media team actively undermined and discredited my loved ones. I tuned into Question Time to see my former bosses – people that I had dedicated my life to – downplay my lived experience.”

“If they aren’t committed to addressing these issues in their own offices, what confidence can the women of Australia have that they will be proactive in addressing this issue in the broader community?”

“This isn’t a political problem. This is a human problem. We’ve all learned over the past few weeks just how common gendered violence is in this country. It’s time our leaders on both sides of politics stop avoiding the public and side-stepping accountability. It’s time we actually address the problem.”

Michele O’Neil, ACTU president: “We are here today for girls under covers listening to approaching footsteps. For every woman in a bar, street, in an office who feels that look, who feels that threat. We say to men in this place who are drunk on power, ‘Don’t think you will get away with it.’ ... Change is coming, it’s coming like a tsunami.”

Saxon Mullins, co-director of advocacy at Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy: “One in five women have experienced sexual violence. Men, where do you think these perpetrators are hiding? They are your friends. They are your co-workers. They are your football mates, and they are your friends from school.”

Korra Koperu says she is scared to walk anywhere alone.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Melbourne

Julia Banks, former Liberal MP: “This is one of the most defining moments for Australian women because it’s driven by the most powerful force that makes up 51 per cent of our population: women.”

Huong Truong, former Victorian Greens MP: “Vote ’em out. Replace them and do not flinch. Double down. Stand witness. Let’s give them hell.”

Wil Stracke, assistant secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council: “We are angry. And we are hurting. It’s not just that we are not safe. It’s not just that we are not respected. We are still not equal ... we still don’t have equal pay. We are right to be angry.”

Korra Koperu, 19, trans activist: “I am not just scared to walk home at night. I am scared to walk anywhere.”

Grace Tame at the Women’s March 4 Justice rally in Hobart.Credit: Twitter

Hobart

Grace Tame, Australian of the Year: “Ten years next month, actually, that I made a choice to stand up against a man who repeatedly raped me and used to boast to me about other girls that he had raped before he raped me. I’m not going to name him – he doesn’t deserve any air time. But I was afraid of doing something until a different kind of fear usurped that fear, and that was the fear of doing nothing. The fear of doing nothing should outweigh your fear of doing something.”

“You know, as is often the case when an issue that has been shrouded in darkness for such a long time is suddenly thrust into the light, there’s widespread shock and disbelief over how something so evil could happen, and not just happen, but happen so ubiquitously. And the answer is plain and simple – silence. Evil thrives in silence. Behaviour unspoken, behaviour ignored, is behaviour endorsed.”

Sydney

Dhanya Mani, former NSW Liberal staffer: “I’m so angry as well standing in front of this building because it isn’t just about Scott Morrison, it isn’t just about men, it is about every person in a parliamentary building who stood by and did nothing.”

Matt Kean, NSW Environment Minister: “This is not a Liberal issue or a Labor issue – it’s all of our issues. And this is about saying no to violence against women and saying yes to equality across our community, and that’s something that we should all be a part of.”

Debbie Fletcher addresses the crowd at King George Square.Credit: Jocelyn Garcia

Brisbane

Debbie Fletcher, Kalkadoon woman and social justice advocate: “I’m a grandmother, I am a mother, I am a sister and an auntie and a daughter ... I’ve been a fighter all my life, I make no apologies for that. I will continue to raise my voice while women in Australia continue to be abused, raped and murdered.”

Read more here.

There were emotional scenes in Canberra when former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins made a surprise appearance on stage.

She said for two years she felt people only cared about her accusation that a colleague had raped her because it happened in Parliament House.

At the March 4 Justice rally outside Parliament House in Canberra, Ms Higgins called for leaders on both sides of politics to “stop avoiding the subject and side-stepping accountability” for sexual harassment and abuse in politics and the wider community.

March organiser Janine Hendry embraces Brittany Higgins after her speech in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I was raped inside Parliament House by a colleague, and for so long it felt like the people around me only cared because of what happened and what it might mean for them,” she told the crowd of more than 5000.

“These are the people making our laws and governing the country.

“If they aren’t committed to addressing these issues in their own offices, what confidence can the women of Australia have that they will be proactive in addressing this issue in the broader community?”

She said there was a “confronting sense of banality” and horrible acceptance of sexual violence against women in Australia that had to change.

“We are here because it is unfathomable that we are still having to fight this same stale, tired fight,” she said.

Ms Higgins sparked a national conversation about sexual harassment and abuse when she went public a month ago with her allegations a colleague raped her in March 2019 in the office of their then-boss Senator Linda Reynolds. She said on Monday she felt at the time she wasn’t treated as a person who had experienced a life-changing traumatic event but a political problem.

Read more here.

After that whirlwind of impassioned speeches and high-spirited marches, it feels like a good time to give a bit of a wrap of the day’s Women’s March 4 Justice rallies across the nation.

In Melbourne, more than 10,000 women, children and more than a few men, came to show solidarity with their sisters, saying “enough is enough” about the poor treatment of women.

“I don’t want to be an angry feminist, yet here we are,” said a sign held by Tory Sorensen, 48, of Geelong.

Ms Sorensen, a survivor of sexual assault as a young woman, said the purpose of the day was for women “to be heard, hopefully”.

Tory Sorensen came from Geelong to rally at Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens.Credit: Carolyn Webb

“We just want to be heard, because this has gone on for far too long.

“Women are dying and we aren’t getting the recognition we need. Only 3 per cent of rapists are convicted, and that breaks my heart.

“I’m a survivor of sexual assault and I didn’t do anything 20 years ago because no one would believe me. I was 25 when it happened.”

But she said women sexual assault survivors still weren’t believed.

She said the rally was “amazing. It’s warming my heart. For so many people to come out at such short notice, it’s like, we’re not silent, any more”.

Authorities had allowed for 5000 people to attend the event under COVID-19 rules, with an initial 1000-person cap lifted on Monday morning, but organisers said the crowd had topped that number.

Leo Day, 16, of Prahran, came with a group of eight students, three of them boys, from Wesley College, wearing school uniform and with the blessing of their teachers.

“I don’t believe I should be in school,” Leo said. “I think this cause is way more important than another class.“

“I think there’s an issue of way too many people not feeling safe and the school system is not doing enough for girls who don’t feel safe at school because of the boys’ culture that’s developed.”

Bill Rollnik, 74, of North Balwyn, the father of four daughters, the youngest 16, came by himself to the rally.

He said “women have been copping it in the neck” for millenia and “it’s high time society does something about it”.

He said rape, sexual assault and discrimination against women “is not going to be eradicated, but people should do everything they possibly can to reduce it happening”.

He worried about his daughters, and girls in general, “being subjected to abuse at home or in public, and I think it’s high time society gets serious and tries hard to reduce this happening”.

Cathy Walker, 63, of Geelong, held up a sign saying “Ditch The Dicks”, as a play on words of “Ditch the Witch”, a slur directed at former prime minister Julia Gillard.

Ms Walker said the sign was “just calling out misogyny and ignorance and the dismissal of the issues facing women every day, all day. Especially in our current Parliament House. The highest level of government in the country is just ignorant of women”.

Ms Walker and her friends also intended to attend a March 4 Justice Rally at Geelong’s Trades Hall at 5.30pm tonight.

Earlier today, a banner bearing the names of women and children who were killed by men was unfurled at the official Women’s March 4 Justice in Melbourne.

The 30-metre long banner listed the names of 898 women and children who have been killed at the hands of men since 2008. The crowd held a minute’s silence in their honour.

The banner bears the names of at least 500 women and children killed by men.Credit: Justin McManus

Organisers had initially expected about 85,000 women, men and even children to turn out across the nation for more than 40 Women’s March 4 Justice rallies across the nation.

But by the looks of these pictures that are dropping into our systems, there were even more. Voices were raised, fists were pumping and the anger was palpable.

Photographers Dominic Lorrimer, Alex Ellinghausen, Brook Mitchell, Edwina Pickles and Nick Moir have been out and about in Sydney and Canberra. You can check out their pictures right here.

Things are getting heated at a splinter rally in Melbourne. A group broke off from the official Women’s March 4 Justice at Treasury Gardens and marched along Collins Street to the state’s Liberal Party headquarters.

Police have arrested at least four people who glued themselves to the road at the intersection of Flinders and Swanston streets in Melbourne’s CBD shortly after 1pm AEDT.

All four were taken into custody for obstructing traffic. Police emphasised they were not part of the March 4 Justice rally.

Reporter Carolyn Webb is at the scene. She said about 200 marchers, some in school uniforms, who were initially spread out along Collins St, are now about an hour into a tense stand-off with police.

A string of speakers, including teenage girls, have taken turns to stand up on a bench, with the crowd sandwiched between rows of police.

The girls have told stories of incest, sexual harassment and sexual assault. They have talked about times they were not protected by authority, and then told surrounding police that they should not be acting against them.

Police clash with protesters after a breakaway group rallied outside the Liberal Party headquarters in Melbourne.Credit: Eddie Jim

Anti-domestic violence campaigner and former MP Phil Cleary made an impassioned speech to the crowd about how nothing had changed in society since his sister was murdered in 1987 outside her place of work in Coburg.

He said women continued to be murdered and sexually assaulted.

Tens of thousands of Australians hit the streets in at least 40 rallies across the nation today, through major cities and regional towns.

Donning black clothes and masks, the crowds, mostly women, are calling for change: in workplaces, in schools, inside their homes and on the streets.

Some of the marchers have told our reporters that fighting for equality for women has been a lifelong fight. For others, it is their first march - and sadly, it is unlikely to be the last.

Here is how the marches looked across the nation. Our picture editors will be adding to this gallery as more pictures arrive.