Page 4239 - Week 13 - Thursday, 19 November 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
really should not be a left wing or a right wing thing; it is just about our children flourishing and as mums being able to represent the people whom we want to represent and whom we were elected to represent here.
I welcome the government’s support and mention of the breastfeeding strategic framework. As I say, I think great effort has been made over the past. When Chief Minister Gallagher left this place I wrote to her and thanked her for the changes that she had made into the operations of this parliament which made my life as an MLA and a mother more manageable. I rate those changes, and in some ways they should not be something that is only ever put up by one or the other side.
I agree there is a great deal more still to be done. I am really glad to hear Minister Rattenbury suggesting that we look at the concept of the lock on the door. At the time that that breastfeeding room was built I was an employee in the building for a short time with a new baby. I rang downstairs to someone in the administration of this building, and I said to them, as an employee with a breastfed baby, “Why is there no lock on the door? I want to breast pump and that room is not appropriate. I would be happier in the toilets.” I was told it is a safety issue. It is not a safety issue if you lock the door to go to the toilet, but apparently it is a safety issue if you lock the door to breast pump. I really hope that can be resolved as well as part of this debate.
Finally, I recommend to the admin and procedures committee that if there is any possibility of them opening this debate to submissions, I am sure the Australian Breastfeeding Association would love to put in some information to the debate. I assume Slater and Gordon, who have been very active on this issue—I commend them for that—would want to put their information in. Perhaps there could be a hearing. There is no harm in airing this whole thing. The whole point of this debate is not just about the needs of MLAs; it is about the fact that the Assembly sets the agenda in many ways for workplaces around the ACT for what is normal, for what is acceptable and for what a breastfeeding mother or a pregnant mother feels that she can demand or ask for within her workplace.
The Sex Discrimination Commissioner’s national report last year about breastfeeding and pregnancy discrimination showed the sad reality that when women face discrimination at this time of their lives and are made to feel that they are not welcome in their workplaces—which does happen, sadly, that report shows us on a regular basis—they really are not in a great position at that point in time to be demanding outcomes. I would welcome that they should, but often women do not feel they are in their strongest position when they have just had a baby or when they are about to go on leave and have a baby. In a way, it is a vulnerable time, and we need to proactively set up systems that already cater to them so that women do not have to feel disempowered anymore.
I accept the amendment. I really hope this debate is not just a debate but that it ends up with some outcomes that can then be spun off into the community for everybody’s benefit—every family, every mother, every father, every child, every future politician, every future woman in parliament. I hope we will start to see a culture which welcomes babies more in this country.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video