I’ve spent more than 30 years working in healthcare.

I’ve been a nurse and a midwife. I’ve worked with women through some of the most important, and some of the most difficult, moments of their lives.

And one thing I’ve learnt is this: women know their own bodies.

But too often, our health system doesn’t listen to them.

Women’s health is not a niche issue.

It’s not simply about reproductive health either.

It’s about women leading healthy lives and accessing the care they need at every stage of life.

Around the world, we’re once again seeing women’s reproductive healthcare become a political battleground.

And this is a reminder we can never take hard-won progress for granted.

Women deserve the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies, their own health and their own futures.

But advancing women’s health is about more than protecting rights. It’s fundamentally about understanding the specific health needs of women and effectively responding to them.

Earlier this year, the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health celebrated its 30th anniversary.

For three decades, it’s followed the lives and health of thousands of Australian women, generating evidence that has shaped improvements in policy, legislation and funding.

The value of the study is that it doesn’t treat women as simply a collection of body parts or diseases – it explores women’s health in the broader social and psychological context.

It’s helped expose problems that were too often ignored.

We know that women with endometriosis wait, on average, between five and six-and-a-half years for a diagnosis after symptoms first appear and I congratulate the government for the good work they are doing in this space.

We know women are around 75 percent more likely than men to experience adverse reactions to prescription medicines.

We know the symptoms pre-empting heart attack can present differently for women.

And these are not just statistics. They are reminders of what happens when women’s health is under-researched, underfunded, or when healthcare is built on an assumption that what works for men will work equally for women.

Insights from the study have also been central to developing an evidence base about the health of women in regional and rural Australia.

It doesn’t take a study to know that access is harder in communities like those I represent. But evidence helps us move beyond acknowledging the problem and closer to solutions.

Because if you live in regional Australia, you might have to drive hours to see a specialist, wait months for an appointment, or face dangerous delays in an emergency.

Good healthcare, effective women’s health care, is not just about having a service somewhere in Australia.

It’s about being able to access that care when you need it, where you live.

It’s better research into women’s health. It’s reproductive healthcare without stigma.

And a health system that recognises women’s health needs from adolescence, through pregnancy and motherhood, to menopause and beyond.

Women deserve a health system that works for them.