"Why are we not enraged every time a woman dies?"
These were the words of Tabitha Acret in front of a crowd of about 200 people who marched from the Newcastle Museum to Nobbys Beach Saturday afternoon, chanting and refusing to go quietly in the face of endemic violence.
Ms Acret's daughter, Mackenzie Anderson, was found lying outside her Mayfield home having suffered horrific stab wounds on March 25. Despite the efforts of paramedics and police to save her, she died at the scene. Mackenzie's former partner remains before the courts, charged with the death of the young mother who would have turned 22 on Monday.
The march at the weekend, which was organised and led by the violence prevention advocacy group 'What Were You Wearing?', was staged in memory of Mackenzie and dozens of women killed in Australia in violent incidents this year. Before Ms Acret spoke, the assembled crowd heard a litany of names of victims before a moment's commemorative silence.
"Every name that was read out was somebody's daughter," Ms Acret said in an emotional address, "She was somebody's sister, mother, friend. The ripple effect from the deaths of these women is huge and we can never fill the hole of the people we have lost."
For some, the memorial march at the weekend was another in a long list of actions calling for better protection and prevention of violence. Some were survivors, others had friends and family who had survived. Some came to remember those they had lost.
A young woman holding a sign that read "Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no" said she remembered the chant from attending Reclaim the Night marches with her mother when she was a child. At the edge of the sign, she had added #MeToo and a date.
"It happened to me last year," she said, "It happened in a really remote town in the centre of NSW. It happened after a party. I still struggle with it today ... I'm marching for myself and for women."
A young man holding a sign that read "Look up Police DV statistics" had only attended another march in protest of the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade a few weeks earlier.
"I had a family friend who went to art school with my mum," he said, "She was getting her car keyed by a vindictive ex-boyfriend and had a friend in the police force who contacted him with her new address. He was able to go to her house. She was alright, but he was able to menace her.
"It's getting the information out. It's making people aware of not just what the issues are, but the specifics of them. It's a demonstration that people won't just be silenced ... People get together and think they're not alone; there are other people that this is unfair."
Ms Acret delivered a powerful and emotional message highlighting the inadequacies of the law to prevent, and the community's response to, instances of violence.
"You always want to say more than you do," she said. "But there are trans women and women of colour dying. When Indigenous women die, it's hard to find information about them.
"All women are equal ... we should be just as enraged. The rage that Mackenzie got was appropriate, but that rage should be the same for everyone.
"We're outraged when anything terrible happens - and we're outraged for a minute - and then it goes away.
"Reaction is not helping us. We need prevention ... I don't want reaction and punishment, I want prevention. I don't want women to have this trauma."
As the crowd gathered to hear testimony and speeches at Nobbys, Nathan and Samantha Cordina surprised Ms Acret with a $6500 donation raised through Mr Cordina's Dapto business NLC Mechanical. After learning of Mackenzie's death, Mr and Mrs Cordina, who had not met Ms Acret before, staged a weekend car show to raise funds for her family.
"The community has been amazing," Ms Acret said, holding back tears, "I can't believe strangers have wanted to help us so much. In a really dark time in our lives, we've seen that there is so much love. Even though we have experienced something horrific, the heart of life is still good."
