Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the answer given by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in relation to the Prime Minister’s decision to provide $2½ million for the preservation of the dead union tree at Barcaldine and, on the other hand, the decision by the Prime Minister not to provide $800,000 to the Bonnie Babes Foundation, which is based in Melbourne and provides counselling and support to 12,000 Australian women who have suffered miscarriages and stillborn babies. I ask the Prime Minister: is he aware that one in four pregnant Australian women will lose her baby to miscarriage? Is he aware that one in 200 will suffer a stillbirth? And, further to his answer when I asked him about this earlier, is he aware that Lifeline refers callers who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth to this service? Will he now agree to meet these women and provide them with the $800,000 that they desperately need to support Australian women in distress?

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