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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-08 Daily Xml
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International Women's Day

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:12): Today I would like to speak in this place about the International Women's Day event I attended this morning in the Town of Gawler. The event had the theme of embracing equity. There were approximately 130 people who attended this morning, predominantly women, but there were some men as well.

The event was well attended by local schools, including the Gawler and District College, Xavier College and Trinity College. A number of scholarships and awards were presented to some young women from those three colleges. The organising committee raises funds which they present to students, young women, to help them with their studies, and the STEM awards were sponsored by a third party.

The event had three guest speakers and a panel discussion. The panel included Judy Ferguson, a retired principal. Judy is very well known in Gawler for her work in the arts but also in a whole range of other community organisations. Amongst other things at the moment, she is the chair of the Gawler Community Gallery. She is also a published author and has written both fiction and non-fiction, and has undertaken a lot of work throughout her whole life improving the quality of life for women. That goes back also within the education system when she joined in less enlightened times and she had to deal with a whole range of discrimination which existed in the service at the time.

One of the other panel speakers was Dawn Connelly who originally comes from England. Dawn has worked in the British defence forces and now is also a registered nurse and does some work as an agency nurse in various nursing homes. She spoke about her experiences. The third one was Bryony Tucker, a young scientist, who has completed a PhD. She is a research scientist in pig reproduction and pig health. She made the joke that she works with pigs every day but the four-legged type.

It is interesting that these three women are at different stages of their lives—a young woman entering her career, a woman who has had some time off but still working, and a woman who is actually retired from the workforce. They were able to present their life experience and how things have changed, not to say that things do not need to change further, but certainly when they look back they have changed considerably.

The event is put on by a committee comprising various local organisations including the Zonta Club of Gawler, the Gawler VIEW Club, the Country Women's Association of Gawler, the Gawler Girl Guides and a number of community members including Kim Wright from the Gawler Children's Centre. Kim is quite active in a whole range of things, particularly helping children. She does a lot of work with young dads and young mums and does really important work in promoting wellbeing in our community.

This is an important event and every year they have different speakers and just talk about issues, also to reflect upon how we are progressing. The event would not be possible if it was not for the support of various organisations, which I would like to mention: the VIEW Club of Gawler, the Zonta Club of Gawler, the South Australian Country Women's Association and the Gawler Bottlebrush Ladies, Kiwanis Club of Barossa, the Rotary Club of Gawler, Lions Club of Gawler, Lions Club of Angle Vale, Bunnings, Willaston Hotel, Cafe Sia, Girl Guides, Naomi Reschke, various members of the committee, also people donating a number of things for raffles. The event was held at Nixon's Function Centre. They do a really great job there—

Mr Pederick: Yes, they do.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO: They do, yes—also supported by Kibble Consulting and TryBooking.

Just in the time I have left, in talking about International Women's Day, I think it is very important that we do not forget about the women in this world who we do not hear about, the women right across the world who in addition to suffering the type of discrimination and glass ceilings that women in the West experience, they experience even further discrimination—lack of housing, lack of food and the poverty that strikes them. While I appreciate that we have a long way to go in Australia, in terms of the world we have a long, long way to go before women get an opportunity to live reasonable lives.

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