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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Matilda Boseley

Women's March 4 Justice: Brittany Higgins addresses Canberra protest as crowds mass in Sydney and Melbourne – as it happened

So that’s where we might leave it for today.

We have had tens of thousands of people turn out for hundreds of events, everywhere from Parliament House in Canberra to the tiny town of Talbot.

The centrepiece of the day has to be Brittany Higgins’ speech in front of Parliament House, in which she took aim at the government’s treatment of her after she was allegedly raped by a former colleague in the building she stood in front of.

Grace Tame was met with cheers in Hobart, and hundreds if not thousands of other women came forward to share their stories of assault, rape and harassment.

I hope everyone is OK. Days like this can be truly draining. Seek help if you need it. Spend time with the people you love if you can and as daunting as it might seem, remember what Martin Luther King Jr said: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.

If it’s been particularly tough for you reading the news today, remember in Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14.

If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, family or domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.

Farima Forooziya, 42, was one of thousands who attended today’s rally in Adelaide’s Victoria Square along with her 11 and 2-year-old daughters.

I’m a survivor of sexual assault. I survived when I was 11 and now my daughter is 11,” Farima said.

The last few weeks have been so traumatising for survivors. My daughter asked me what can she do about it? So we had a big chat about consent. She had heard the words “toxic masculinity” and wanted to know what it meant, so we talked about that. It was amazing how well she understood consent even though she is so young.”

I’m very happy for her to miss school today to be a part of this. I think this is an important experience for her to learn she has a voice. I certainly was not expecting this crowd. I was blown away. I think the organisers were a little late in putting the information on Facebook and that this many people still came is incredible.

It says a lot. It says enough is enough. That we need to be heard.

Now, Brittany Higgins today said that she was horrified to hear about a “long list of people who knew what happened” to her.

Albanese then questions Scott Morrison’s assertion that he was not aware of the alleged rape until Higgins went public.

MP Anika Wells has asked in parliament: “How can the prime minister maintain that he didn’t know about a reported sexual assault just metres from his office for nearly two years when so many other people inside this government knew?”

Wells:

And Malcolm Turnbull, Peta Credlin and Julie Bishop all say it is implausible that the prime minister didn’t know.

Morrison:

I could say I wasn’t aware of this until 12 February because it is true, Mr Speaker. That is the simple truth of the matter.

We have already heard today in reports that have been printed in News.com[.au] of any number of what seems event [sic] that may have occurred in relation to members opposite they apparently don’t know. I can simply say this about these very sensitive matters. They are sensitive matters and they are traumatic matters.

And we see that evidenced in the great frustration and anger that is outside of this place today and so many other places. That is genuine and accepted. But in this place, in this place if we are to take successful action to address the very issues that are being raised, then the way that that is achieved is not the political weaponisation of these things.

But dealing with them honestly and sincerely and together and I would invite the opposition to take that course rather than the alternative, which seems to be the approach that they are going down. People in this place live in glass houses.

Updated

Melbourne's protest wraps up

The more than 5,000 women who attended Melbourne’s March 4 Justice have spilled out of Treasury Gardens back on to Melbourne’s tweets. They carried with them a message from Wil Stracke, the deputy secretary of Victorian Trades Hall Council.

We are entitled to be safe. We are entitled to respect. And it’s fucking past time that we were treated as equals …

Join us in taking this from a march to a movement. Join us in getting this shit done.

As Stracke spoke, a plane flew overhead towing a banner that read: “Women vote too”.

The sentiment was repeated on signs carried by women in the crowd, and in conversations between women as they left the march. One sign said: “This mob votes”.

A 14-year-old marched under a sign saying “You have fucked with the wrong generation”. Next to them, a friend carried a sign saying “½ of women are sexually harassed, of course we’re angry”.

Every woman who spoke to Guardian Australia said they attended the march because they were angry.

Grace, carrying a sign saying “mates rates for mate’s rapes”, said she was “angry about all of these things that keep happening. I can’t believe they are still happening, in the 21st century.”

Kathy Brunning, carrying a banner saying “you are no longer entitled”, said she and her friends attended the march “because we are women and we feel angry”.

We all know women who have experienced violence at the hands of men, or experienced violence ourselves … You are not entitled to play with us.

Updated

Morrison went on to say:

I acknowledge the frustration and share the disappointment of what has not been achieved. Those who gather outside the place today, an invitation was offered to them for a meeting with me today. A good faith action, but I respect their right of organisers to choose not to meet.

That is their right and I respect the right. If we were to meet, I would advise them of the following of the matters raised in virtue of the petition.

We all agree that all cases of gendered violence should be referred to the authorities.

Police are the appropriate independent authority. As terribly difficult as it must be, going to the police and making a statement is the only way to achieve justice and to ensure the perpetrator can no longer harm anyone else.

The Australian government is committed to ensuring all Australian workplaces are safe and free from sexual harassment and assault. The government commissioned the Australian Human Rights Commission’s respect at work in the women’s economic security statement in the budget.

Amy Remeikis has very astutely pointed out over on the politics live blog that the government has had this report for over a year and has yet to respond.

Updated

So just going back for a second before question time, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, seems to have a very interesting take on today’s protest.

He has pointed to the Myanmar protest movement, where dozens have been killed at the hands of police, and applauded Australia for not doing such things here.

Here is the speech:

Today here and in many cities across our country, women and men are gathering together in rallies both large and small to call for change and to act against violence directed towards women.

It is good and right, Mr Speaker, that so many are able to gather here in this way, whether in our capital or elsewhere, and to do so peacefully to express their concerns and their very genuine and real frustrations.

This is a vibrant liberal democracy, Mr Speaker. Not far from here, such marches, even now, are being met with bullets, but not here in this country, Mr Speaker.

Updated

Four people glue themselves to the road in Melbourne

Victoria police have praised the March 4 Justice protesters in Melbourne for their peaceful demonstrations and say all “were compliant with the chief health officer restrictions and no breaches or incidents were detected”.

But police said four people not associated with the protest have been arrested after gluing themselves to the road on the major CBD intersection of Flinders and Swanston streets:

All four were taken into custody for obstructing traffic. Those arrested were not part of the March 4 Justice rally.

It’s unclear if this was a break-off protest group or a totally separate protest about a different cause.

Updated

It looks like a small protest has restarted in Melbourne, with a fairly large police presence surrounding the protesters.

The prime minister has been asked in parliament why he did not come outside to meet with protesters today.

He did extend an invitation to the organisers to meet with him in his office, but they declined, stating that these conversations could not happen behind closed doors.

I set out that I was very happy to meet with a delegation of those who were attending here in Canberra today and they would have represented the views more broadly of those who are attending marches around the country today.

Very happy to have met them in my office. That offer to meet them was provided in good faith but I respect their right to decline that invitation and I’ve set out as best as I can in this place the issues that I would have referred to and advised those who came but principally I would have welcomed the opportunity to have listened to the issues they would have liked to have raised directly.

Updated

Here are some more women in Canberra telling us why they came to the protest today:

Albanese has again questioned Scott Morrison’s assertion that he was not aware of the Brittany Higgins allegations before she went public a month ago.

All of us need to do better. All political parties, all businesses, all workplaces, our entire society. Because sexual assault and these issues are about the power imbalance in society. That’s what it’s about. And that’s why women are demanding change. And they’re entitled to get it.

We had outside of this chamber a magnificent speech by Brittany Higgins. I say to the prime minister – listen to it. Listen to what Brittany Higgins had to say. But because he wasn’t there, I’ll help him out.

She said this: “I watched as the prime minister of Australia publicly apologised to me through the media while privately his team actively undermined and discredited my loved ones ...”

A reported sexual assault happened just metres from the prime minister’s office. We know that multiple ministers were informed. We know for example over issues like the special minister of state would have been informed at the time that something had happened in that office.

We know that one member of the PM’s staff knew two years ago. A second member of his staff said it would be raised with his chief of staff two years ago. A third member of his staff knew the alleged perpetrator was dismissed two years ago. A fourth member of his staff checked in with Ms Higgins after Four Corners last year. We know that a former prime minister and former deputy leader of the Liberal party have said very clearly it’s not credible, this information wouldn’t have flown up the chain.

Updated

The leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese, is speaking in parliament, taking the prime minister to task over his refusal to launch an independent inquiry into the allegation of rape levelled against the attorney general, Christian Porter.

We had today women gather around Australia with a few very clear and unambiguous messages, “hear us roar”.

The prime minister needs to listen. To listen to what women are saying about what is happening in this building, and outside. They said enough is enough. And what I saw outside was passionate women who are angry, they are angry about what has happened to them, they are angry about what has happened to their mothers, their grandmothers, their sisters, their daughters and their granddaughters. And they’re crying out that this is a moment that requires leadership. And it requires leadership from this prime minister, and we are not getting it, prime minister.

We need an independent inquiry into the allegations that have been made against the attorney General. We know from the former solicitor general Justin Gleeson [that] that would be an entirely appropriate thing to do. And, frankly, for a government that had an inquiry into a kitchen renovation of a former prime minister long before she was in parliament, I find it quite frankly incredible some of the arguments that have been used by this government to reject that proposition.

Porter has vehemently denied the allegations levelled against him.

Updated

The Queensland premier has appeared at the March 4 Justice protest in Brisbane.

Updated

Updated

The march is still well under way in Brisbane.

Updated

And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it:

I missed this before but independent MP Helen Haines was also part of the crowd in Canberra.

It seems like the main thrust of the protests are coming to an end. But here are some great protest signs before people go.

So far prime minister Scott Morrison, minister for women Marise Payne, deputy prime minister Michael McCormack and treasurer Josh Frydenberg have not tweeted anything about the protest and none have appeared.

Updated

I don’t think even this gives a sense of the massive crowd at the Sydney protest!

Here is an aerial view of outside the Town Hall.

Updated

Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has joined the crowds in Sydney:

Updated

Here is a clip from Brittany Higgins, because honestly, it deserves to be heard:

Updated

Protesters in Melbourne have turned their backs on the parliament:

Updated

Here are a few clips from the speeches in Sydney:

Updated

Former MP Kerryn Phelps is part of the crowd in Canberra.

Coffs Harbour on the north coast of New South Wales has also held a protest:

It’s time to check in with some pretty fantastic protest signs. Here are a few of Calla Wahlquist’s picks from Melbourne.

Here is a clip from Brisbane, where the march has begun.

Updated

The Sydney protest is now outside the NSW Parliament House.

A huge crowd is filling Macquarie Street, easily stretching from the parliament to the courts building, with more arriving.

There are at least 10,000 people here. Numbers were higher at the start of the rally at Town Hall, with a few dropping off along the way.

“There are people still waiting down at Town Hall. Can you believe that?” says one speaker.

One speaker just told the crowd:

It is appropriate that we are here outside this toxic NSW parliament.

She says this is not just something that happens in Canberra.

This parliament has seen some bad, bad crimes.

Updated

Speaking out, as Brittany Higgins has done – it takes a toll. It keeps placing you back there. To do, as she has done, takes a piece of you. But it’s given in the hope others will never lose a piece of themselves.

But – and it is a huge but – people who stay silent about their abuse and hold their own stories tight are no less courageous. Just surviving takes courage. Your story is your own, and you owe no one else anything. When something has been taken from you in the most violent and brutal of ways, you take back control any way you can.

If you have never told anyone your story – please don’t feel any shame. Please don’t be watching what is happening and seeing people being praised for courage as a comment on what you should be doing. It is your story. Your life. Your decision. There is no playbook here, no rules about what you should be doing. There is no right or wrong.

There are so many reasons people don’t come forward – including, but not limited to, safety, blowback, mental health concerns, impact, wanting to move on, lack of support, community expectations, or just processing.

Your stories are valid. Your response is valid. We stand with you, and we are so, so sorry it happened.

Updated

And here is the march from Talbot, Victoria, population 442.

That’s a pretty amazing turnout percentage.

Updated

A group of high school students are here at the Sydney march, and older attendees are coming up to talk to them every few seconds.

“You’re the next generation,” one woman says as she asks them for a photo.

One of the students, Sophie, tells Guardian Australia:

We just wanted to support people who have gone through something. And in the future, it will be better for us.

They say that the school consent discussion mostly spurred them here but it’s also “what’s going on in politics at the moment”.

They’ve been to protests before today, they say, including the school climate strikes.

Here is the march from the regional town of Taree in NSW:

Updated

Despite the prime minister stating that he would not come down to the protest to speak to the women, it looks like his likeness is attending regardless.

Part of the Covid-19 requirements for the Sydney protests was that people remain in groups of 500.

Naaman Zhou says the protest has spilt into these groups in order to march.

Updated

Former MP Julia Banks has addressed the crowd in Melbourne. She said she was initially scared to speak today for fear of repercussions.

Banks said federal parliament is “dominated by men in power”.

But there’s something more powerful than the people who hold power. It’s this, it’s the people.

She said Australia had reached a moment for change.

Enough with the internal reviews, that stay internal to the big boys in power who do nothing with them except hide them ...

This is our collective voice. It is a roar. It is a roar which says to men in power: if you turn your backs on women, we will turn our backs on you.

Updated

Scenes now from Brisbane:

Tame has urged more people to speak up:

It’s terrifying having these conversations. I’m terrified, just as you are. Right, but fearlessness is not so much an absence of fear. It’s a refusal to let it stop us moving forward.

So when you see abuse, when you hear abuse, let it know it’s there. And that you’re not afraid to stand up to it.

Just as you can be a domino in a positive line moving forward, you can also be that little domino that stops the negative culture from continuing.

Years ago, it will be 10 years next month, actually, that I made a choice to stand up against a man who repeatedly raped me and used to boast to me about other girls that he had raped before he raped me. I’m not going to name him – he doesn’t deserve any airtime.

But I was afraid of doing something until a different kind of fear usurped that fear, and that was the fear of doing nothing. The fear of doing nothing should outweigh your fear of doing something.

Updated

Grace Tame speaks in Hobart

Australian of the Year Grace Tame speaking outside the Tasmanian parliament in Hobart.
Australian of the Year Grace Tame speaking outside the Tasmanian parliament in Hobart. Photograph: Philip Bohle

Australian of the Year Grace Tame is speaking now from the Hobart protest.

Tame campaigned tirelessly to change the laws in Tasmania that banned her from speaking out about being groomed and sexually assaulted by a teacher in high school and has become a voice for the anti-sexual violence movement in Australia.

Tasmania! You know what’s incredible – this surge, this cultural shift, this paradigm shift of normalising the conversation of sexual abuse. You know where that started? It started here!

By embracing legislative reform that enabled survivors of sexual abuse to have a voice and be heard. We started it here. (CHEERING)

We may be a small community but we are leading the nation. That is a testament to the power of solidarity. It’s a testament to the power of hope, resilience and a refusal to let fear stop us from doing anything.

When an issue that has been shrouded in darkness for such a long time is suddenly thrust into the light, there’s widespread shock and disbelief over how something so evil could happen, and not just happen, but happen so ubiquitously.

And the answer is plain and simple – silence. Evil thrives in silence. Behaviour unspoken, behaviour ignored, is behaviour endorsed.

Updated

Higgins was met with a chant of “We believe Brittany” from the crowd as she left the stage.

Brittany Higgins has spoken about the reasons she decided to speak out:

I decided to resign and share my story because I felt it was the only thing that I could do to say that I didn’t cosign this behaviour.

That I don’t believe what happened was right. That I don’t believe a brochure is adequate support. That I don’t believe people should be isolated, intimidated and ignored after traumatic incidents inside the workplace. I came forward with my story to hopefully protect other women.

By staying silent, I felt like it would have made me complicit, and if something of this nature had ever happened again, my ongoing silence would have inadvertently said to those people in charge that you can treat people in this way and it’s OK. I want to be clear – it’s not!

So I have spoken out with what little I have to say this isn’t OK and they need to do better. We all need to do better.

I encourage each and every one of you to set boundaries for yourself and be ruthless in your defence of them. Speak up. Share your truth and know that you have a generation of women ready, willing and able to support you.

Take ownership of your story and free yourself from the stigma of shame. Together, we can bring about real, meaningful reform to the workplace culture inside Parliament House and, hopefully, every workplace, to ensure the next generation of women can benefit from a safer and more equitable Australia.

Updated

Brittany Higgins says she was treated like a “political problem” by the government after her alleged attack.

I was dismayed by senior male journalists who routinely implied that my partner was pulling the strings behind the scenes. The sudden inference being that a traumatised woman wasn’t capable of weaponising her own story.

I watched as advocates on the macro level disappear when the issue hit too close to home at the micro level. I had these suspicions confirmed when the media exposed a long list of people who knew what had happened to me. A list that seemed to grow by the day as truths about internal reviews, Senate committee submissions, office cleans and witness accounts were all unearthed.

These are the people making our laws in governing the country. As our leaders, they should be the exemplar – the gold standard. Sadly, this just isn’t the case.

If they aren’t committed to addressing these issues in their own offices, what confidence can the women of Australia have that they will be proactive in addressing this issue in the broader community?

This isn’t a political problem. This is a human problem. We’ve all learned over the past few weeks just how common gendered violence is in this country. It’s time our leaders on both sides of politics stop avoiding the public and side-stepping accountability. It’s time we actually address the problem.

Updated

Higgins says prime minister's office tried to discredit her loved ones

Higgins has slammed the prime minister’s office handling of the situation after she came forward:

These past few weeks on a personal level have been extremely difficult. Like many of you I have watched this all play out in the media.

I watched it happen from a laptop in a spare bedroom in my dad’s apartment on the Gold Coast. I watched as the prime minister of Australia publicly apologised to me through the media, while privately the media team actively undermined and discredited my love ones.

I tuned into question time to see my former bosses, people that I had dedicated my life to, downplay my lived experience. I have read the news updates every day at 5am because I was waking up to new information about my own sexual assault through the media. Details that were never disclosed to me by my employers, information that would have helped me as questions that have haunted me for years.

Updated

Brittany Higgins speaks at Canberra protest

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who came forward to speak up against the government’s response to her alleged rape inside Parliament House, is speaking now in front of that same building.

She has been met with a huge wave of applause.

I speak to you today out of necessity. We are all here today not because we want to be here but because we have to be here. We fundamentally recognise the system is broken, the glass ceiling is still in place and there are significant failings in the power structures within our institution.

One out of every five women in Australia will be sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetime. If you are a woman of colour the statistics are even higher.

I was raped inside Parliament House by a colleague and for so long it felt like the people around me did not care about what happened because of what it might mean for them. It was so confusing because these people were my idols. I had dedicated my life to them. They were my social network, colleagues, and my family. Suddenly they treated me differently. I was not a person who had just gone through a lot of changes, I was a political problem.

My story was on the front page for the sole reason that it was a painful reminder to women that it can happen in Parliament House and can truly happen anywhere.

Updated

Media personality and journalist Lisa Wilkinson is speaking at the Canberra protest now.

Wilkinson was the original reporter to interview Brittany Higgins about allegedly being raped at Parliament House.

We also must thank the incredible female journalists in this country who have refused to allow this story to just float away.

In being asked to address you all here today, I called Brittany Higgins, and asked her if there was anything she would like me to say on her behalf. And her immediate reply was yes. But yesterday, Brittany Higgins decided not to have me read the words. Instead Brittany Higgins wanted to say those words herself.

Updated

Brittany Higgins attends Canberra rally

Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash’s former staffer Brittany Higgins has walked into the rally outside Parliament House.

She hugs one of the organisers Janine Hendry as she walks into the crowd.

As she walks in, a woman is speaking about men keeping their hands off women.

“No more,” the crowd starts cheering.

Updated

The secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus, is speaking in Canberra now.

I do believe we’ve been called a mob. What we want is simple. We want a stop to rape, a stop to murder. We are not faceless. We are the majority. Anger combined with unity, direction and purpose, it brings change.

Updated

An update from Sydney:

Several people have been sending me photos of the really significant police presence in Melbourne today. Here is a shot from the front of the Treasury building next to Parliament House.

Updated

Women have begun to march in the regional city of Wangaratta in northern Victoria.

Labor and Greens leaders seem to be well and truly in the crowd now in Canberrra.

Saxon Mullins speaking Canberra

Saxon Mullins, the complainant in the rape trial of Luke Lazarus, who pushed for the NSW state government to commission a review of sexual consent laws, says from the stage:

One in five women have experienced sexual violence. Men: where do you think these perpetrators are hiding? They are your friends. They are your football mates. They are your friends from school.

Do you laugh at sexist jokes? Do you think you could outrun Cathy Freeman? Do you look the other way when your mate yells at his girlfriend on a night out? Do you tell people they are being too sensitive when they call out sexist, racist or transphobic remarks?

If any of this rings a bell, I need to remind you that you helped create a toxic culture of misogyny.

Calling for an independent investigation into the attorney general and the implementation of recommendations made by recent inquiries into black deaths in custody and sexual harassment in the workplace, she adds:

We are up against a government that does not care about its people. We deserve a government that cares about us.

Updated

I’m hearing from Calla Wahlquist that the crowd size in Melbourne is between 5,000 and 10,000 already.

There are so many people there that plenty are having trouble with phone signal and the internet. Thousands all trying to post at once.

Updated

The rest of Australia, don’t think we have forgotten about you.

Here is Adelaide:

Newcastle:

Hobart:

And Albury:

Updated

In Melbourne currently:

Updated

High profile politicians have walked out of Parliament House, led by Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese and trailed by other staffers.

This came as Julie Zemiro kicked off proceedings in Canberra:

Women need to be heard, they need to be believed and they need to be safe everywhere.

She recognizes less privileged women - Indigenous women, women of colour, trans women and disabled women - and takes a dig at the divisiveness of a recent comment piece by Parnell McGuinness against boomer feminism in the Nine papers. “We are ALL here for a purpose.”

Aunty Violet Sheridan opens her Welcome to Country with fury: “Enough is enough.”

Updated

A big turn out in the regional city of Ballarat in Victoria as well.

Some big names rocking up at the Syndey protests!

Australian gem Sam Neill is there. (Yes I know he is from NZ but I’m claiming him for today).

Former Lord Mayor of Sydney Lucy Turnbull is attending the protest in Sydney.

Her husband former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has been fairly vocal in calling for an independent inquiry into the historical rape allegation levelled against attorney general Christian Porter.

Porter has vehemently denied these allegations.

Many women have travelled from interstate to attend the Canberra rally.

Among them are staff with the Australian Council of Social Service, who arrived from Sydney this morning.

Chief executive Cassandra Goldie is carrying a placard that simply says “unstoppable”.

She says the sentiment is reflected by the Canberra turnout. “Me too means many many things,” she tells the Guardian.

The reality is that these issues, sexual assault, gender-based violence, are pervasive across the community. Women have known that forever. And every time we see another example of where action is not taken, and people are not held to account, what does it say?

The protest seems to be kicking off in Melbourne as well:

Updated

Labor leaders en route to the protest

Senior Labor politicians have emerged from the parliament house in Canberra.

Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek leading the small crowd.

Early contenders for best signs in Canberra are Felicity from Bilpin and Kylie from Western Sydney.

Felicity says:

We are here because we are sick of violence against women and we are sick of our leaders not listening to women. 51% of the population are women but only 38% in parliament. We need more representation.

Kylie says:

A member of my family was murdered by her partner three years ago - and nothing has changed.

Updated

About ten minutes out now from some most of the major protests starting.

Our picture editor Carly Earl is out on the streets in Syndey asking people why they are marching today.

Antoun Issa is doing the same in Melbourne, and Mike Bowers in Canberra. If you see them, let them know why you are marching.

Huge crowds have already gathered outside Parliament House in Canberra.

Reporter Christopher Knaus is there to bring us updates:

Updated

Some popular phrases on today’s placards include “Not Happy Jen,” and “Jen we need to talk”.

For those that are confused this is a reference to the prime minister, Scott Morrison’s now-infamous comments after former Liberal staffer Brittany’s Higgins went public with the allegation that she was raped by another staffer in the ministerial offices of Linda Reynolds.

He said:

Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?’ – Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has.

People were fairly concerned at the implication that Morrison was only able to empathise with an alleged rape victim after considering that his daughters may also be vulnerable to male violence.

But now protesters are saying that Jenny needs to have another chat with him, after he has repeatedly declined to launch an independent inquiry into the allegation that his attorney general Christian Porter raped a 16-year-old girl when he was 17 in 1988. (Porter has categorically denied these claims.)

The push for an independent inquiry is one of the driving forces behind today’s protests.

Updated

We are about 40 minutes away from three of the major protests starting (Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne) and there are plenty of posts on social media describing trams, trains and buses full of protesters making their way there.

Looks like it’s going to be a big one:

Updated

Reporter Calla Wahlquist is at the Melbourne protest bringing us updates.

If you stop her, come say hi!

Updated

A movement has started for those unable to attend the protest in person as well, with people wearing black today in solidarity with those marching.

People of all ages have been turning out for these protests. Here is someone from yesterday’s event in Perth.

Victoria’s surf coast is getting involved this morning, here is the display from Torquay:

The photo is from Rebecca Hosking Photography.

Updated

Earlier this morning protest organiser Janine Hendry ran into Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in the halls of Parliament and spoke to him about the Australian Human Rights Commission’s national inquiry into sexual harassment in workplaces.

Hendry:

The Australian Human Rights Commission report landed on the Attorney General’s desk over 12 months ago and we have not seen any implementation of the recommendations that were in that report, and it was pretty scathing. It was pretty scathing. So, when you told me that you are willing to look at it, I am going to tell you “I want some action” and the women of Australia want some action. We are drawing a line in the sand right here, right now.

McCormack:

OK. All right.

Hendry:

Can you give me that assurance?

McCormack:

We will certainly look at it. I cannot give you the assurance.

Hendry:

I am not interested in looking at it. You have been looking at this for years. It is time now. We want to change now. You have had that report for 14 months.

Updated

Good morning, everyone, Matilda Boseley here to cover all the March4Justice protests going on around the country today.

Every major city is holding an event (Perth had their’s yesterday), with hundreds of regions cities and towns joining in as well. The main event will, of course, be outside Parliament House where we are expecting to see protestors and politicians interacting, and the crowd delivering a petition to the government.

The petition calls for the following:

  1. Full independent investigations into all cases of gendered violence and timely referrals to appropriate authorities. Full public accountability for findings.
  2. Fully implement the 55 recommendations in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work report of the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces 2020.
  3. Lift public funding for gendered violence prevention to world’s best practice.
  4. The enactment of a federal Gender Equality Act to promote gender equality. It should include a gender equity audit of Parliamentary practices.

While some members of the government are expected to leave parliament house to speak with the protesters, so far no senior ministers have said they will make an appearance. (Dan Tehan did say he would meet with constituents from his electorate if they asked, but didn’t clarify if this meant in his office or out on the lawn).

Scott Morrison said he was too busy to leave the building but invited the leaders of the march to his office for a private audience. This offer has been rejected, with organiser Janine Hendry saying that protesters “have already come to the front door, now it’s up to the government to cross the threshold and come to us.”

We will not be meeting behind closed doors.

This march has been prompted by several alleged sexual assault scandals involving members of the government.

This includes the allegation against attorney general Christian Porter, who is accused of raping a 16-year-old girl when he was 17 during a 1988 school debating championship. He has vehemently denied these allegations and the government has so far refused to consider an independent inquiry into the allegations after NSW police said they could not investigate.

There is also the incidence of defence minister Linda Reynolds calling former staffer Brittany Higgins a “lying cow” on the day Higgins went public with allegations that a fellow staffer raped her in Reynolds’ offices.

Reynolds has since clarified she was questioning Higgins’ allegation that the government did not provide her with enough support in the weeks after the alleged incident and not her account of the alleged attack itself. She has also paid compensation and issued a formal apology.

Now the protests are starting soon (most at 12pm) but if you are still keen to make an appearance, you can check out details for the major events below.

Updated

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