Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

Many years ago, my grandmother, Troy—who'd had my mother, Marie, and my uncle John—had another child. He was stillborn, and they named him Tony. But, because he was stillborn, he was buried in an unmarked plot in a grave at Adelong. That is what the view was then. Three hundred women a day have a miscarriage. But for them it is their child; it is their baby. That's 110,000 a year. This is an issue which is not getting the attention it should. Just recently we had the case in Queensland where a lady at 12 weeks went to the hospital and was holding her 12-week-old child in a biohazard bag in the waiting room for hours. There isn't a focus on the emotional trauma that this issue causes. At the time, the Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, noted that she had also had a miscarriage and the trauma it caused her. We have to do something further on this.

I want to talk about and acknowledge Claire Brett from my electorate. Claire had suffered multiple miscarriages and experienced severe anxiety with her pregnancy after the loss. Claire organised a function the other day. It sold out in seven minutes—bang! Completely sold the room—which goes to show you that even in New England, in a small city such as Armidale, there is a focus on this issue. I keep pretty sombre company, but at that function we had so many women, especially younger women who had experienced this. There was a focus on it. As part of the fundraising, we had a six-foot-three transvestite. Usually I'm not found in their company, but on this day I made an exception. A really good night was had by all to raise money for this.

I want to encourage as many areas as possible to be part of this group. It is called Lighting the Way. I want to encourage as many areas, groups and suburbs as possible to reach out to their constituents and have a similar organisation, because I think you will be amazed at the unrecognised hurt that is there. The people I was talking to were saying: 'We recognise that date just like any other birthday. We recognise that event as we do for other children. We felt that baby inside us. We had a relationship with that person, and that person died.' That is exactly how they see it. We have to become vastly more civilised than we were in my grandmother's time, where they were just taken to the graveyard, buried in an unmarked plot and, forevermore, you would be wandering around trying to work out where this child—which would be my uncle—is. They are worth more than a plaque.

As part of what we're doing in a bipartisan way, we want to make sure that, for all the people at the inaugural fundraiser held in Armidale, it is just that: the inaugural fundraiser for many other fundraising activities that will follow. Between those of us on either side of this chamber, we will work with Claire Brett of Kentucky and all the other women who say that this is something that this parliament can do which is positive, which is effective and which would take us and our nation to a higher place.

Lighting the Way provides counselling and support services for women who have experienced miscarriage, so we don't have to have these issues where people go through a miscarriage and are basically just told, 'Oh well'—obviously you, Madam Deputy Speaker Chesters, know vastly more about this than I do. For guys out there like me: what you have to go through if you go through a birth post birth is what you have to go through if you go through a miscarriage post miscarriage. You have to have the same checks and the same issues. For so many people, it's the same as having a baby.

Congratulations, Claire. I commend the work that you do to the House and to the nation.