We’re Done With Thoughts, Prayers & Promises — It’s Time For Tangible Change

“That’s a lie, that’s a full-out lie,” Sarah Williams, the grassroots leader of What Were You Wearing (WWYW), told the Prime Minister of Australia as he addressed a crowd of thousands that she had tirelessly gathered to protest men’s violence. Albanese was handed the mic and used some of his opening lines to tell the crowd that Williams had declined his and Katy Gallagher’s request to speak. At the time, and in a statement online, Williams denies this was ever requested. 

Over 100,000 people attended these protests, myself included, chanting until my voice was ragged and hoarse. In the weeks leading up to the march, protestors changed their signs counting the number of murdered women multiple times. We already have to change them again for the next one, as more women have already been killed this week. The emergency of femicide in Australia could not be more apparent. 

As Sarah cried beside him, Anthony Albanese carried on speaking to the crowd. Later this week, he announced a package of funding for one-off payments that do not address the core demands of the protest. Further, The program will not launch until July 2025. He declined his need to apologise to Sarah. He posted tweets about how governments need to do better, prompting the now-infamous reply, ‘Babe the government is you’. 

Responses from politicians across the country rolled in over the next week, perfectly crafted to absolve them of blame or responsibility. Even the politicians who attended the rallies cherry-picked which parts to respond to. I read statement after statement, feeling a deep sense of unease. How can one hundred thousand voices not be heard? 

I’ve been protesting for nearly a decade, attending protests calling for climate action and ending offshore detention as a teenager. I was raised and mentored by strong women who taught me courage and conviction. I rallied for affirmative consent laws and abortion rights and have seen them change. I have always held firm to the belief that enough voices united can make a difference, and that the right to protest is a direct function of a representational democracy. When I look around the current political landscape, I don’t feel represented anywhere. But when I take to the streets, it seems, at best, that politicians are annoyed that their constituents demand to be heard. At worst, they walk back into their offices and start designing unconstitutional anti-protest laws. (In better news, two “Knitting Nannas” Climate Action group members took those laws to the Supreme Court and overturned them last year.)

A disconcerting tone is forming in Australia. Calls for change are loud at all levels of government, on dozens of issues, and getting louder. Megan Karkouer is a staunch advocate for prison reform and First Nations Sovereignty, speaking passionately on the weekend at the WWYW protests about how violence is disproportionately affecting First Nations women. Jordan van den Berg is creative in his call for rental and property law reform through shitrentals.org. Immunocompromised disability rights activists are taking their fight online. This week, Zac Terry was in a tree protesting the clearing of Larrakia Land as a construction worker tried to saw it down with him in it. Activists across the country are marching month after month for an end to the genocide in Gaza. Students protesting for Palestine are occupying their university’s front lawns in tent encampments in Australia and around the world, calling for divestment and change. The people are united, loud and clear. Yet, with all this noise, our politicians are uncharacteristically quiet.

Politicians are setting an unsettling precedent with their tendency to ignore, redirect or outright mock protest actions, and this isn’t new. I’ve watched Parliament livestreams where politicians roll their eyes and laugh with one another when activists yell from the Gallery. When I email my local politicians, I am lucky to get even an automated response. I never forgot how I felt when I heard former Prime Minister Scott Morrison declare it “a triumph” that peaceful March4Justice protesters in 2021 were not “met with bullets.” Morrison’s words felt like a threat. He made it clear as day that protesting was not tolerated by him and others in power. 

How do we make our governments listen to their people again? How loud do we have to be?

It is unconscionable to have thousands of people calling on the Government to stop leaving us with the onus of saving ourselves from men’s violence when they have the means and the money to design comprehensive prevention. In fact, they can do one better and meet Sarah William’s call for collaboration, when she wrote that “co-design is crucial to reform.” If the National Cabinet had walked through those crowds last weekend, they would have heard hundreds of tangible solutions, powerful testimony of how the current systems have failed, and the hope that they could be built better. Instead, we have politicians who refuse to call the problem what it is, offer proactive solutions, or even say the phrase “men’s violence.”

Now is not the time to be won over by milquetoast Instagram posts from politicians, or “thoughts and prayers”, but to demand better. If a politician wants my vote they have to show me they deserve it, that is the bare minimum. We must demand that our elected representatives live up to their name and be representatives of the people. I think that they often conveniently forget that detail in their job description. 

When two women announced they plan to jointly run for the Seat of Higgins and job-share the role at the next election, Nationals MP Darren Chester called the notion “entirely unworkable”. Others have criticised how impossible it would be for two representatives to reach a consensus for one vote. Their shock is laughable in my opinion. The elected politicians baffled about how two people will settle on a vote seem to forget that every time they vote, they are meant to vote on behalf of the thousands in their electorate. Forgetting that your voters pay attention is a grave blunder. I’ve found that the site They Vote For You has been instrumental in allowing me to keep tabs on the decisions my representatives make. More and more, I see people make up their minds at the polling booth based on a candidate's track record, not campaign promises or how they have voted in prior elections. Voters listen and remember.

It is hard to be hopeful right now. However, I stand firm in my belief that hope is all we have, and all we need, to keep making change. The glances I share with fellow protestors form a sense of solidarity. One person in the march calls, and the collective responds. As we chant, we become louder than the sum of our parts. We only need to look to the past to see how effective loud and vocal assembly can be in making change happen. To quote Grace Tame, "The start of the solution is quite simple – making noise."

During the What Were You Wearing Protest speeches in Perth, I turned to my right and saw a young girl, not much older than I was when I started protesting. She was holding a sign high above her head, chanting loudly. I remember how it felt to show up for what you believe in, be loud and make change. Her sign said I deserve to grow old. I felt tears form and I let them flow. That sign alone should be enough to stir action in any politician in this country. She deserves to grow old. Even more, she deserves to be listened to and heard. As she grows up, all I can hope is that her voice being heard moves from the realm of wishful thinking and becomes the very foundation of discourse among our nation's leaders.