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In April last year, I was asked by the Minister for Defence to conduct an independent Review into the Treatment of Women - both in the Australian Defence Force Academy, or ADFA, and in the broader Australian Defence Force - on behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Let me also acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional land of Ngunnawal people. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who have worked so committedly to eliminating sexual assault.

Thank you, Bob, for that generous introduction and warm welcome. And thank you to G&T for hosting this event. I am so pleased to be able to join you this evening for this year’s Vincent Fairfax Speaker Series. I thought I might never make it – for the last two days I have had the privilege of being on-board the warship HMAS Sydney as it undertook war exercises offshore –…

Let me begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who work tirelessly to reduce domestic violence.

Just over a year ago the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission launched the Same-Sex: Same Entitlements National Inquiry into discrimination against people in same-sex relationships in the area of financial and work-related entitlements.

Thank you Professor Lansbury, and thank you to Marian and the Women and Work Research Group for organising today’s forum. Thank you also to our panellists – Dr Lyn Craig, Petra Stirling, and John Murray.

I hope you’re all enjoying your hot breakfasts and are extremely grateful for them. For a couple of reasons: First- you didn’t have to cook them yourself, or, to be more precise, wash up all the dirty frying pans yourself. This is because you are working and you don’t have time to cook hot breakfasts for a particularly fussy group of consumers, your family.

Thank you for the invitation to speak today. How wonderful it is to see so many men here to support something that has for too long been placed in the "women"s issues" basket, as if violence against women is our problem.

We all know why we're here today. You're here because men aren't seeing enough of their children, that after divorce they're lone fathers if they're lucky and cheque books on legs if things turn out badly. Sadly, there are some men who just disappear as dads altogether.

Firstly, I would like to pass on apologies from the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, The Hon. John von Doussa QC, who is presently interstate and unable to be here today. It goes without saying that he entirely endorses the purpose of this project and believes there should be more of it.

1. " ... there are 106,000 poor single women over 65 as compared with 40,000 men in this group in 2000" Senate Community Affairs References Committee A Hand up not a hand out: Renewing the fight against poverty: Report on poverty and financial hardship, Commonwealth of Australia 2004, p211. 2. C Brown- Conference Paper- Retirement Income Modeling Task Force- Joint project Treasury ,…