It was great to spend last Wednesday celebrating International Women’s Day in Truganina with so many fabulous local women from across the Laverton electorate. We were fortunate enough to have the Minister for Women attend our morning tea, where she spoke about gender equality and the theme of investing in women and addressing financial barriers and gender pay parity. I want to thank the team at Mamma Roti in Truganina for hosting us and Rashi from Little Growling for the fantastic catering she did in preparing and absolutely catering for the best feast ever. It was great to see so many women from different backgrounds, including school students, teachers, businesswomen, two of our fantastic local mayors and more, all in the same room together.
This year there is a very special reason to be celebrating International Women’s Day here in Victoria: because it was the first one in 32 years that we have had a woman as Premier, the second in this state’s history but certainly not the last. We also celebrated the fact that for the first time two-thirds of our government’s ministers are women. With our government we can see in action a government that has gender equality and outcomes for women at the fore of its decision-making processes. In areas like women’s health, child care, education, transport and employment, we are making bold strides in creating a more inclusive state for all Victorian women and, importantly, their families, and that is something I think we can all continue to celebrate.
