I too rise to speak on the Health Safeguards for People Born with Variations in Sex Characteristics Bill 2025. I will start by telling a quick story, because I love telling stories here, and I have got many to tell today. I am just a bit disappointed that my great friend Tony Briffa is no longer in the gallery to hear this contribution, because she was a mayor in my electorate of Laverton, mayor of Hobsons Bay, and did a tremendous job. Tony is a tremendous person, so I hope, Tony, that you are listening to this, because this one is for you. What I am going to tell you about this story, just quickly, is that the young man who wrote my speech and contribution this afternoon said, ‘You need to speak on this bill.’ It is not usually the kind of bill I speak about. I speak about lots of energy bills, transport bills, other sorts of legislative reform. And he said, ‘This is a really important bill, and it is really important to people like Tony. It’s about Tony.’ I have not spoken to Tony for ages. I have not seen Tony for a long time. And I said, ‘Tony?’ And he said, ‘Tony Briffa. She made history.’ I am going to talk a bit about Tony in just a moment.

I do want to go to the member for Lowan’s amendments – the Shadow Minister for Mental Health, I believe – that were put forward in this place by those opposite. The only time I feel like intersex Victorians have been mentioned in this Parliament – and this will be my eighth year – by those opposite, has never been through advocacy. It has never been through the advocacy of people like Tony. It has never been through their understanding. It has never been through their leadership. It has been reduced to things like footnotes and clauses and legal technicalities that are just read out during the passage of government bills, like the member for Lowan has read out here today. The only time the Liberal–One Nation misinformation coalition – and I am going to say that all year, all the way to the election, because it is a misinformation coalition – have ever chosen to go further was when the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council used intersex people as part of a broader culture war argument, and that was not to support them, that was not to listen to them but to dismiss them.

[Interjection]

Intersex people, when they are talked about in this place by those opposite, have been described as a factional minority, which is an advanced, rigid, chromosome-based definition of womanhood that simply does not reflect the biological reality. It erases the lived experiences of people like Tony, a tremendous local westie who has fought her whole life to have a bill like this come before this place. Those opposite have a message with the amendments that the member for Lowan has just put forward. That message to intersex people is ‘You can exist but you should not count.’ It says to people like Tony ‘You should not count’ – not in our public language, not in health and pregnancy care, and not in who is recognised as a woman or who is recognised as a mother. That is not respect, that is exclusion. And it deeply concerns me that members here in this place and in the other have gone on to suggest that a government advertising campaign – and we all remember that – encouraging applications from women, Aboriginal Victorians, people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ+ people and intersex Victorians was somehow discriminatory against the broader community. Encouraging inclusion is not discrimination. Do you know what it is? This is why it is foreign to those opposite: it is leadership. It is leadership, and by God that is what this state needs. That is what the intersex community needs. That is what Tony needs – Tony and the many, many friends that Tony has and the people that Tony speaks for.

But this is not a new pattern. We know this is not a new pattern. When those opposite were given the opportunity to support a simple, practical reform that would have allowed intersex Victorians to amend the sex marker assigned to them at birth – a change about dignity, accuracy and, by God, personal autonomy – what did the Liberal–One Nation misinformation coalition do? They opposed it. That tells us everything that we need to know, that tells Victorians everything that they need to know on 28 November this year. On this side of the house, every single one of us believes intersex Victorians deserve more than to be spoken about when it suits them in an argument. We know they deserve to be respected, they deserve to be recognised, and by God they deserve to be protected – protected from some people, like those opposite. They deserve to be protected in our laws, in our language and in our community. This is the very stark difference between a government that governs for everyone and an opposition that chooses division over dignity.

For once in this place I would welcome a discussion on the LGBTIQ+ community – including our intersex community, with wonderful people like Tony here in this room – that does not come from the gutter with the gutter lines and the gutter ideology that come from those opposite. That is all I am going to say about the member for Lowan. I am totally shocked that she is the Shadow Minister for Mental Health. I thought a bill like this would improve the mental health of great westies like Tony and many, many others. Now, we talk about Tony and the intersex community making up a small part of our population. I think that is a no-brainer. I have got notes here; it is 1.7 per cent. Now, when the young kid in my office was like ‘You need to speak about this and stand up for Tony,’ I said to him ‘1.7 per cent of the population’. And he said, ‘Well, do you know’ – and I do not think folks here know – ‘there are more intersex folks in the world than there are people with red hair?’ I thought that was an incredible fact, and I said to him, ‘You know what, let’s go ahead and speak on this bill.’

I do want to talk in the short time that I have left about Tony. Tony Briffa is a former mayor of Hobsons Bay – a great mayor. We had lots of great conversations. I remember when Tony came up here to speak with the then Minister for Equality we had a great conversation about rights, about Tony’s rights and the importance of continuing to push forward and break down barriers. As I said, as the member for Laverton, I had the pleasure of meeting with Tony on many occasions, as have my colleagues, I am sure, the member for Point Cook and the member for Williamstown. Tony has always been outspoken and so public about her lived experience, as she was an intersex person. Tony was born with a rare condition called partial androgen insensitivity syndrome. This condition is one of those 70 possible sex variations that we have been talking about here today and that this bill is about.

I cannot stop smiling when I say this. Tony is a really proud advocate for our LGBTI community and intersex people across Melbourne’s west but also here in Victoria. Tony has spent decades campaigning for visibility and for acceptance for intersex Australians. Visibility and acceptance – that says it all. We understand that on this side of the house. We stand for visibility and acceptance, regardless of who you are and regardless of your gender, your sex or your intersex. We understand that everyone deserves to be included, and that is leadership. That is having a truly fair and dignified state. That is about improving Victoria, which is already a great state. But it is reminding people to have tolerance and to treat people with fairness and dignity, because at the end of the day we are all people and we are all here for the same reason. People like Tony just want to be seen, and they want to be accepted. This bill is about making things a whole lot fairer, and I commend it to the house.