We gather this morning on the lands of the Kaurna people and I want to pay my respects to their Elders, past, present, and emerging.
I want to thank Aunty Elaine for the graciousness and wisdom of your welcome - and for inviting our reflections on your words and on place and connection.
As I walked up here, Aunty Elaine said to me, there's about 3,000 people here, I imagine each one of them is a generation all connected.
To all of you, thank you all for being here. It's fantastic as always to see this room filled with women and girls and men to support International Women's Day.
I welcome Katherine who I will have more to say about in a moment.
I think there are over 40 parliamentarians or would-be parliamentarians here, so if you'll forgive me, I'm not going to name you all.
I think Sonya has gone through it, I do want to however acknowledge the Premier Peter Malinauskas - he's been a regular attendee and I thank him for his support. And welcome again his wife, Annabel - and Sophie, thanks for getting up Sophie.
I welcome the Leader of the Opposition Ashton Hurn.
I welcome all federal parliamentarians, I'd make particular mention of my ministerial colleague Amanda Rishworth.
And also state parliamentarians, special mention of the Minister for Women Katrine Hildyard.
To all our sponsors, thank you so much for contribution to this event - an event that matters so much to South Australia but that matters also to the women and girls who we contribute to as a consequence of the funds raised around the world.
Well this is the 24th event - IWD Breakfast - that I have hosted here in Adelaide.
As Sonya said, there's more than 3,000 people here in person, more online, and a record 46 schools.
I want to mention a couple of birthdays, first my wonderful aunt Ali, I come from a very matriarchal family and her birthday was yesterday, I was in Canberra so happy birthday.
At least one of our attendees here today is celebrating a milestone - I hope I'm not going to embarrass Cordelia Stott Smith by saying happy 18th birthday!
I'm told Cordelia has attended the International Women's Day breakfast every year since she was born, which is somewhat extraordinary. And actually her mother, Natasha Stott Despoja, attended the breakfast in 2008 and then gave birth to her later in the day - that is commitment.
None of us, none of you, would be here today if it weren't for the excellent work of our organising committee, volunteers, and I particularly thank the team in my office.
Special thanks to the wonderful Meredith Boyle, see she gets her own cheer and she deserves it. I thank you for this Meredith and everything you've done for me for so many years.
I also want to acknowledge long-time member of the Committee Lidia Moretti who passed last September.
I know she is missed by many.
Lidia was a tireless advocate for gender equality, well known and respected in Adelaide - for her involvement in the Italian Community, the UN Association, environment advocacy and community radio.
Well friends, the theme of this year's IWD is balancing the scales.
And they really do need balancing.
Around the world, two and a half billion women are still denied equal economic opportunities.
Women are still more likely to live in extreme poverty, face food insecurity, and nearly a third of women globally have experienced partner or sexual violence in their lifetime.
And as climate and humanitarian crises continue to intensify, women and children are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster, and four times more likely to be displaced.
You would hope we would be moving forward with those statistics but unfortunately, much of the world is backsliding.
Global aid cuts make it harder for women to overcome poverty.
The United Nations is in crisis, and a growing number of international actors suggest that gender equality should take a back seat.
Too many resist progress, on every front.
We see some countries arguing that we must choose between equality and prosperity, when that is a false trade off.
We see others not even pretending to make a trade off but simply asserting that women are lesser.
In Afghanistan, in Iran, repressive authorities deplete their nations' souls but also their prospects, by denying the rights of women and girls.
I have in my office a photo taken in Afghanistan, and its two girls from the back, one of them carrying a red water bottle and they were benefits of a program Australia had until it became too difficult with the Taliban in power. A program that was about getting girls to schools.
And the simple image for me of a water bottle reminds me of the difference between their opportunities and my daughters' who fill their water bottle every morning as they go to school.
We have heard the calls of Afghan and Iranian women and we are committed to defending their human rights and amplifying their voices, and the voices of women everywhere.
We were at the forefront of efforts to remove Iran from the Commission for the Status of Women, and we successfully co-sponsored the Human Rights Council resolution establishing an independent investigation into human rights violations.
And we have joined with Germany, Canada and the Netherlands to take unprecedented action to hold Afghanistan to account under international law for the Taliban's treatment of women and girls.
More broadly, we are deepening partnerships in our region - supporting women's health, rights, safety, economic participation, and leadership through our International Gender Equality Strategy.
And we've made sure we integrate gender equality into our development program. More than 80 per cent of those investments now incorporate gender equality.
And of course, we have made much progress at home.
We know that there is more to do - not least in women's health and safety.
But we should mark some progress on International Women's Day.
The gender pay gap is at a record low, and women's economic participation is at a record high.
We have expanded access to the childcare subsidy.
Paid parental leave now runs to six months, and parental leave payments from government now include superannuation.
And we are boosting the wages and bargaining power of people in aged care, child care and the other female-dominated workforces. This is a pay equity measure.
There is now paid family and domestic violence leave.
And the Women's Health Package is addressing areas of healthcare that have for too long been stigmatised or dismissed as peripheral or even imaginary.
And part of the reason we have been able to make this progress is the Australian people have elected a government that understands and acts on the priorities of modern Australia.
And I am very proud and grateful to be part of a government that for the first time in Australia's history is majority women.
Aunty Elaine spoke of today being a day on which we honour the strength and leadership of women.
And we see it in so many areas of life, we see it in public life, we see it in science.
Which brings me to our guest speaker.
Australian of the Year for 2026, Katherine Bennell-Pegg.
She is not only the first Australian woman to be trained as an astronaut.
Katherine is also the first qualified astronaut under our flag.
Australian women have long been involved in scientific discovery.
But they haven't always been welcomed and celebrated.
And, over and over again, women in science were denied recognition for their extraordinary achievements.
There was the anthropologist Georgina King, who was excluded from scientific debates in the 1890s because of her gender.
Ruby Payne-Scott, a physicist and radio astronomer, who in the 1940s played a central role in discoveries that made our country world leader in radio astronomy.
Ruby was determined, bold and a brilliant mind, part of the CSIRO's trade union, where she fought for equal pay and conditions for women, and protested laws that required women like her to resign their positions on marriage.
She married in secret in an effort to avoid having to resign.
And there was the group of women scientists who, frustrated by such discrimination and ill-treatment, came together in the 1980s to agitate for change.
And the changes that these women fought for in the sciences and in society in general, have allowed - or enabled - subsequent generations of women to pursue careers in STEM and in space.
I'm sure Dr Katherine Bennell-Pegg would count herself among them.
As a high school student, Dr Katherine Bennell-Pegg was asked to write down three different career options.
And she had the resolve to write only one - 'Astronaut'.
And she had the determination to pursue that goal - through years of study and training, here and abroad - so that it can become a reality.
Katherine has talked about being asked how it felt to become the first Australian woman astronaut.
Her response?
'It's about time!'
It certainly has been about time.
Katherine Bennell-Pegg's example reminds us that we can and should set ambitious goals.
And also that, if we work together to tackle the barriers to those goals, then nothing is beyond our reach - not even space itself.
I'm sure you are all as excited to hear from her today as I am.
Thank you so much for being here.
