Picketing the International Women’s Day breakfast

Written by: Liz M on 6 March 2026

(Supplied)

For many years now, women in South Australia have been able to attend an IWD breakfast as a prologue to celebrations of women’s achievements and protests about ongoing exploitation and discrimination.

This year’s event, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, was a little different.

For the first time, a number of women and their supporters picketed the event to object to the role of the host, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, in failing to support the women of Gaza.

Organised by the Australian Friends of Palestine (AFOPA), the picket began at 6am as the first of more than 3000 attendees entered the building.
AFOPA made its objections to Wong’s hosting of the event clear: 

“Since October 2023, over 28,000 women and girls have reportedly been killed in Gaza. Nearly 250,000 women and girls face starvation. More than one million women and girls have been forcibly displaced. In 2024, 70% of women killed in conflict globally were from Gaza.

“As Foreign Minister, Penny Wong represents Australia’s foreign policy, which has provided diplomatic cover and material support that enable these atrocities to continue. She has misled the public about Australia’s weapons exports to Israel and has been referred to the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting genocide.”

IWD began as a protest against capitalism and its oppression of women. The first Day was organised by the American Socialist Party in 1909. In 1911, Communists Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg started Women’s Day in Europe. In March 1917, women textile workers in Russia used the event to call for Bread and Peace. The revolution later that year saw the culmination of their demands, and March 8 was decided upon by the leaders of the new Soviet Union as the day for a national holiday and international celebration.

For many years, IWD was celebrated as International Working Women’s Day, but there were very few working women in evidence among the $60 per head ticketed entrants to this morning’s breakfast.

It has become an increasingly corporatised event: the class dynamics were gobsmacking. There wasn't even any attempt to fig leaf it by inviting First People's women like they did a few years back. Just the business set, power suits, designer dresses etc. And many blazered private school girls -at least 6-8 private schools.  There was one small group of public school kids.

We carried effigies of dead babies and held corflutes about Wong’s position on Gaza and the disproportionate effect of the genocide on women and children. It was a silent protest asking the participants not to cross the picket line, but to my knowledge no-one changed their mind.

Nevertheless, it was the first real challenge to the event, and it was a challenge to Wong.

No doubt she will whisper something to Albanese about the bloody difficult women who picketed the event.

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