Emma Bates, 49, has been remembered as a “proud aunty” who had “the biggest heart” after her body was found inside her home in Northern Victoria earlier this week.  A family statement read: “She was always helping someone. Dropping food for an elderly neighbour. Giving lifts to people who needed it. The list goes on.” On Tuesday, emergency services were called to her address in Cobram, Victoria, where they found Bates with fatal injuries.  Her partner John Torney was arrested by police on Wednesday and charged with intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury, common law a ..read more

On 1 June last year, indexation was applied on my then HELP debt of $87,722 at 7.10 per cent. This resulted in a $6,228 debit being applied to my HELP account. This year, student debts are due to rise by 4.8 per cent, the second highest indexation rate in a decade. HELP indeed! I am a 41-year-old professional woman. I have been in and out of the workforce for the last 18 years, as I raise my children, and engage in part-time work. As such, it was only 3 years ago that I finally began earning enough to start making repayments to my HECS-HELP debt through my income. At age 17, I began my higher ..read more

Rallies calling for government action on violence against women are happening in a dozen locations across the country over the weekend. The No More National Rally Against Violence, starting in Ballarat this Friday at 5pm, was organised in response to the targeted attacks on women in Bondi Junction on April 13, as well as the concerning growth of gender-based violence in Australia. Just 17 weeks into the year, 25 women have been killed in 2024 at the hands of male-perpetrated violence, according to Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women. Over the weekend, a number of key people will be speakin ..read more

Former Coalition minister Karen Andrews has said she was unable to convince any women to nominate themselves for the Liberal National Party preselection for her safe seat on the Gold Coast. Andrews has held the seat of McPherson for 14 years and announced last year she would not contest her seat in the 2025 election. She holds the seat with a 12.2 per cent margin. On the weekend, there was a Liberal National Party preselection vote for the Gold Coast seat, where four men – and not one woman – nominated to be the party’s next candidate. Speaking to ABC News, Andrews said it “wasn’t for want of ..read more

Australia could see its first job-sharing candidates running for a single seat in parliament in the next federal election. Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock, lifelong friends from Melbourne, launched their campaign over the weekend, jointly running as the independent candidate for the electorate of Higgins in 2025. The pair say sharing the role will not only produce better outcomes for the constituents of Higgins, but will also set a model for future candidates to follow, to boost representation of women, carers, people with disabilities and other underrepresented people in parliament. Bronwen Boc ..read more

Last week, The Federal Court’s Justice Michael Lee found that on the balance of probabilities Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins at Parliament House in 2019. In his judgment, he found the pair had sex in the office of Senator Linda Reynolds, but that Higgins did not consent and that Lehrmann was indifferent to whether she had consented or not. Following the verdict, Lehrmann scurried off to a regional NSW police station for protection from the masses while Higgins, finally vindicated after two abandoned criminal trials against Lehrmann, spoke out. In a post shared on X, Higgins said ..read more

Recent research has revealed some stark findings that young women are put off entering parliament and working in politics. Despite the fact that the Australian government has achieved gender parity (although not across the entire parliament), and there have been well publicised reforms to the parliamentary workplace as a long-needed response to a disgraceful history of documented abuse, the research shows that that young women are reluctant to be a member of parliament. The interviews conducted with young women and men regarding their ambitions are insightful. The published research illuminate ..read more

Domestic and family violence support organisations have told a Senate inquiry of the extreme lack of funding for services operating in the Northern Territory. The Senate committee commenced the inquiry on Thursday in Darwin, looking into the high rates of missing and murdered First Nations women and children in the territory. The inquiry heard from several advocacy and legal organisations, including James Lowrey, principal legal officer at the North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service (NAAFLS). He told the committee that out of the 49 regional and remote NT communities NAAFLS work in, j ..read more

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has said there is a crisis of male violence in Australia, labelling it a “scourge” that must be stopped.  Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast program on Friday, Dreyfus said women could not be expected to solve the crisis of male violence against women alone.  His comments come as 24 women have been killed by violence so far this year, according to Destroy The Joint’s Counting Dead Women register, including five women who were targeted in the Bondi stabbing attack last weekend.  NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said Joel Cauchi, the man who killed ..read more

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has said violence against women is the “number one law and order issue” in Australia and that women are “fed up” with the high rates of domestic and family violence.  At a press conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, Allan said her government is working on a plan to address it and would be announcing further details in the coming weeks.  “We know that on average one woman in every nine days is killed by someone who is known to them – a current or former partner,” Allan said on Wednesday.  “This level of violence against women is not just unacceptab ..read more