Women’s Health in the South East (WHISE) warmly welcomes the Senate’s decision to establish a Select Committee on Women’s Health, and thanks Senator Marielle Smith for the advocacy and leadership that brought it about.

The Committee, which Senator Smith will chair, was established on 19 August. Its terms of reference cover postpartum healthcare, women’s pain and experiences of medical misogyny, fertility and assisted reproduction, and the regulation of medical devices used in women’s healthcare.

WHISE is the women’s health service for Victoria’s Southern Metropolitan Region — ten local government areas from Port Phillip through to Cardinia, taking in some of the most linguistically diverse migrant and refugee communities in Australia.

WHISE Chief Executive Officer Kit McMahon said place-based services would be critical to the inquiry’s reach.

“Senate committees hear from people who already know how to find them,” Ms McMahon said. “A woman two weeks post-birth, without a car, without English as a first language, with nobody asking how she is — she is exactly the person this inquiry needs to hear from, and exactly the person least likely to make it in front of it. Closing that gap is what organisations like ours exist to do.

“Women also do not experience the health system as women alone. Visa status, disability, income, language, distance from a service and safety at home arrive together and compound. An inquiry that treats them as separate categories will produce recommendations that work for the woman who has only one of them, and Australia does not have many of those women.”

Victoria’s Inquiry into Women’s Pain, the first of its kind in Australia, demonstrated what is uncovered when women are asked properly. More than 13,000 women, girls, gender diverse people, carers and clinicians took part over eight months. Seven in ten reported being ignored, dismissed or having their pain minimised by a health professional. Close to a quarter had seen more than ten medical services before receiving a correct diagnosis. The inquiry produced 27 recommendations across seven areas.

“The scale of that response was itself a finding,” Ms McMahon said. “Women had not previously been asked. When they finally were, they came forward in numbers nobody had predicted.

“None of this is bad luck. It is the system running as it was built. Hearing that named from the floor of the Senate narrows the range of things that can be comfortably dismissed, and that is not a small shift.”

WHISE will make a submission to the Committee and has written to Senator Smith offering the organisation’s support. Its submission will press three matters: that health promotion, primary prevention and recovery be considered within scope; that the physical and mental health streams of the inquiry remain connected; and that peri-urban growth corridors be named alongside regional and rural Australia.

“We look forward to supporting and contributing to the Committee’s work, and to helping it reach women in our region whose experience would not otherwise make it in front of a Senate committee,” Ms McMahon said. “We would encourage every service, clinician and community organisation across the south east to do the same.”

WHISE’s full statement, including what it will ask the Committee to consider and how women and organisations in the region can take part, is available at  https://whise.org.au/womens-health/senate-select-co…ee-womens-health/ 

ENDS

Notes to editors

• WHISE is the women’s health service for Victoria’s Southern Metropolitan Region, covering ten local government areas: Bayside, Cardinia, Casey, Frankston, Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong, Kingston, Mornington Peninsula, Port Phillip and Stonnington.
• The Senate Select Committee on Women’s Health was established on 19 August 2026. Submission and hearing details will be published on the Parliament of Australia website once membership and reporting dates are settled.
• Bridging the Gender Pain Gap: The Inquiry into Women’s Pain Report was released by the Victorian Government in November 2025, led by Safer Care Victoria with the Victorian Women’s Health Advisory Council and the Department of Health.
• WHISE’s full statement on the inquiry: https://whise.org.au/womens-health/senate-select-committee-womens-health/