News

3 September 2025

For too long, issues that impact women's health have been ignored. There is no doubt we are seeing more focus on the health issues of women. Women make up 51 per cent of the population and despite tremendous strides in healthcare, women's health needs more attention. Physical health issues like endometriosis, perimenopause, menopause effect half the population. We will all go through it. Yet they are surrounded by stigma and silence and that has been the case for too long and we must remember of course that mental health issues should not be ignored. We need to look at complete body health, mental and physical and in fact this week is body image and eating disorder awareness week and a very timely reminder of the importance of having a healthy body image, and conversations. It is also a reminder that mental health challenges especially around body image are especially confronting for young women. In Warringah, we are over 78,000 women, mothers, sisters, wives, carers, professional and volunteers, our electorate voted to have outstanding organisations that show the value of early intervention and compassionate care. I have visited some of these recently and I want to give them a special mention, Tresillian has for generations provided a to families adjusting to the challenges of early parenthood. I recently visited their facilities and it was incredible to see the level of support for young mothers and young families that they have been offering for so long. The Gidget foundation, out of an incredible tragedy has become the most amazing organisation, offering trusted and specialised mental health care. And the Butterfly foundation which is an incredible organisation as well what for those affected by eating disorders and negative body image, these organisations demonstrate a vital truth, women's health cannot be separated into physical and mental health boxes, there are deeply connect it and in our policy and health services we need to reflect that reality. It's as true for young women struggling with body image as it is for midlife women navigating menopause. While there is access to these important services in our electorate in Warringah and urban and city areas, the same cannot be true for First Nations women and we must always be incredibly conscious that we still do not have parity in Australia when it comes to access to health services for all Australians. Again, also, for remote and regional committees, we know it is incredibly difficult to access that same level of care.

When we think of that access to health incredibly important again to look at making sure we have culturally safe, comprehensive healthcare for First Nations women. We know, that around one in nine Australian women live with endometriosis and have often waited years for diagnosis. In fact around 80 per cent of women well experienced menopause systems and one in four experience them severely. And eating disorders are among the most fatal of all mental health conditions disproportionally affecting women and girls,  and yet there is real still proportionally very little services available and support. Despite these realities, women's health has historically been under researched, underfunded and under recognised. For decades, women are told their symptoms were just part of life or sometimes dismissed without proper consideration. In fact, menopause will impact all women at some stage in their life. It's mostly between 45 and 65 that perimenopause occurs, but of course menopause and postmenopausal periods would also occur and often impacts women at the peak of their careers and often misdiagnosed poorly treated, there is an adequate treatment too often and there all have adverse impact on women's careers, health and it all contributes to that unequal economic outcome that we know women in our society still suffer. While I do commend the government that has been an increased focus in spending on those aspects, it must continue - celebrating small gains is not sufficient until we get so that parity that is necessary. We need to elevate and make sure there is awareness of these issues and health conditions and make sure our GPs are much more cognisant of these more specific issues when it comes to women's health, for well-being, workforce participation in Families and Communities, we need to ensure that all areas of women's health are properly addressed. What can we do, the government funding Medicare rebates for longer consultations address mental health concerns is something to consider. We continue to partner with proven committee services, and I urge the government to support services like the foundations, like Tresillian, The Gidget Foundation and Butterfly foundation - who build out holistic family centered models of care. We need funding for genetic screening for ovarian cancer, which has the most horrendous outcomes and devastating families for the broader family unit. Andwe need to track outcomes and women's health must not remain invisible in national reporting. There is still a long way to go but it is good to finally have women's health on the table be discussed in this place and I do think it is overwhelmingly because there are more women in this place -  was the whether it is on the Government ranks or the Crossbencher ranks, still falling short on the Coalition ranks but that is something for them to address. We know that if we fail to ACT,women will continue to be dismissed and symptoms will be minimised and health outcomes compromised and we will also offer as a nation. If we act, we can reduce the health system the value women's wellbeing at every stage of life.

And finally, we cannot talk about women's health without talking about intimate family violence, we know intimate partner violence is the leading cause of death of women aged between 25 and 44, it's a pretty sobering fact when you income all the other aspects of women's health that it's actually at the hands of intimate partners that their health is most at risk. And it is what causes a huge amount of hospital presentations, disruption and it's just horrific to think that it's still from the fatality that are still occurring. There is lot more work to do, we are in an take it and plan from the Government but it's lacking KPIs and underpinning policies to actually achieve the stated outcome of eliminating intimate partner violence and fatalities from domestic violence this decade, so I urge the government to consider the independent recommendations that have been made. For example, rapid review report commissioned just last year in response to the space of killings that were horrific, experts came together to quickly, rapidly provide a key roadmap to the Government of how they could act promptly. But unfortunately, key recommendation is not been acted upon and these include restricting access to alcohol, especially home delivering of alcohol restricting gambling advertising, all these areas have links - direct, statistical links to increase rates of domestic violence and intimate partner violence. You cannot pick and choose which issues are more politically easy to address and convenient, if we're gonna talk holistically about women's health, we have to address all the factors that impact that. So I urge the government to not be selective and to tackle the hard ones like gambling advertising and access to alcohol for its impact on intimate partner violence, thank you.