Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. There are few things that unite this chamber more than a love of family. Indeed, I believe all Australians and, beyond Australia, all cultures of the world share that love of family. I myself was very fortunate to be born the ninth child and so brought up in a very large family. My wife, Sophia, and I have two precious little ones. I know, as the member for Ryan has laid out, the joy that you have as a parent. Indeed, when my little three-year-old was born, we had hoped so much for a child and we ourselves as a couple had great difficulty and experienced some of the challenges that the member for Ryan laid out. Thank God we have technology available to us. When you look at the face of a beautiful little boy or a beautiful little girl who has come into this world with the assistance of technology that did not exist many years ago, you cannot help, as a person of faith as I am, but be deeply touched and grateful to God to have that life right there in front of you.

But, of course, there are so many couples in this country who go through the toughest of challenges: the highs with the excitement of knowing that a pregnancy is there, the excitement a couple feels when they know there's a chance that a little life is going to come into their world, a little boy or a little girl for whom they have been hoping and praying, only to see a miscarriage take that life away and strip that couple of hope. It is completely understandable how couples fall into depression, anger and a raft of emotions. We cannot have the situation where people feel as though they have some sort of obligation to carry on as if nothing had taken place—to toughen up and get back to work. Only those who have struggled to have a child understand the emotional anguish involved in their efforts.

I often feel most for those who are never successful. I'm sure there's not one person in this chamber who doesn't have someone in their life they know is unable, for whatever reason, to have children. I find they are the most brave people and the most loving of people. More often than not they are the very ones who will put their arms around other's children. Yet they themselves, for whatever reason, have been incapable of bringing a life into this world.

I suspect that the member for Ryan's motion today is one that unites this chamber, as it would unite all Australians. He laid out the interesting statistic that one in six couples go through this. If you think of any crowd of people at any event, you don't start trying to guess statistics in this regard, but needless to say at any party or any public event there are so many people who have gone through the struggle of miscarriage and have relied on IVF, some successfully and some not. As a parliament and a government—not just this one but governments in the future—it is incumbent on us amidst our public duties to be mindful of those who have carried that load and to provide whatever assistance we can in recognition of that through which they've gone.

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