20 January 2023

The Hon Andrew Giles MP

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

House of Representatives

PO Box 6022

CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Minister Giles,

I write to provide support for, and to sponsor Ms Kellie Jay Keen-Minshull's visa application to allow her to visit Australia in March to host 'Let Women Speak' events, providing women the opportunity to attend and speak on women's rights and matters which impact us as women. I understand the Hon. Stephen Bates MP, Federal Member for Brisbane has written to you to request that Ms Minshull's visa application be denied.

In his letter, Minister Bates makes a number of defamatory and heavily distorted claims against Ms Keen-Minshull in an attempt to vilify her and present her as a danger to a vulnerable community. Minister Bates references 'Let Women Speak' events held in other countries, and asserts that she is responsible for the violent, aggressive and horrifying behaviour exhibited by those who oppose women speaking for women's rights, and matters which concern us as women with regards to our safety and protections in law and life.

Minister Bates' claims are easily refuted, as the unedited footage of all the 'Let Women Speak' events are all published on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@KellieJayKeen)..) I am at a loss to understand why Minister Bates is misrepresenting Ms Keen-Minshull requiring armed security at events in the USA, where gun laws are far more relaxed, is a slur on her character, rather than what it is; a sensible risk mitigation against those who repeatedly demonstrate their willingness to use violence and malicious and harmful silencing tactics against women.

The events Minister Bate refers to have been deliberately twisted to present an awful caricature - the violence and harms he refers to have occurred where police and security have failed to prevent violent protestors from approaching, intimidating and attacking the women present. Women were attacked, spit on, followed, bullhorns blasted into their eardrums, signs were stolen and women were yelled at, threatened with violence and intimidated. The footage will easily demonstrate this alarming pattern of behaviour from masked men and women "counter-protesting" the 'Let Women Speak' events. To then re-frame this violence as though the women were responsible is reprehensible, psychologically abusive and manipulative.

Ms Keen-Minshull is a woman's rights advocate, and provides an inclusive space and opportunity for all women, regardless of race, class, politics or religious belief, to speak. She encourages women to be brave, and speak up against laws that are placing women at risk of sexual violence and harassment. Laws that are being enacted against the wishes and consent of women. She empowers women to speak, even if their voices shake, about feeling silenced and powerless, watching their rights being undermined and their legal protections rendered meaningless by the very governments who proport to act to prevent violence against women. She defends the word "woman", and reminds us that we have a right to define ourselves, and speak for ourselves, in a world where the word "woman" is erased and its definition referred to as "hate speech".

In this, I am joined by the signatories below in asking that Ms Keen-Minshull's visa application be allowed to proceed unimpeded by gross mischaracterisations by those dishonorable enough to use their official capacity to misrepresent a women's rights campaigner from visiting, and preventing Australian women like me the ability to attend, listen and speak peacefully without the threats of violence that Minister Bates is inciting towards us by presenting these events to be hateful or threatening, when in reality it is women who are being harmed and threatened for speaking.

I look forward to your response,

Sincerely,

The undersigned.