Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a really important bill that was recently passed in this parliament in memory of little Baby Priya. Heartbreakingly, Baby Priya lived to just 42 days old. Instead of having the freedom to grieve her baby's death during this difficult time, Priya's mum faced distressing negotiations with her employer about a return to work she hadn't planned for.

I don't have firsthand experience of childbirth and losing a baby at the same time, but I do know grief. Grief can be overwhelming, paralysing and raw. Some days, it is truly debilitating. For pregnancies that reach 20 weeks, one in every 135 will end in stillbirth. Baby Priya's bill introduces a new principle into the Fair Work Act to protect families during the most difficult time of their lives. This bill means that, unless employers and employees have expressly agreed otherwise, employer funded paid parental leave cannot be cancelled if a child is stillborn or passes away.

This is for the six babies who are stillborn in Australia every day and the more than 2,000 families each year who face this loss and heartbreak. It means parents can rely on their paid parental leave entitlements regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy or birth. This bill is about dignity, it's about compassion and, from a legislative perspective, it's about defining a grey area of the law and giving families financial security at a time when they need it most, because, even if a person experiencing the loss of a child does have supportive employers, those employers do not have a defined category of leave to give them. It's not bereavement leave. It's not annual leave. What do you call it? This bill provides clarity for parents, employers and the whole workplace. It sets out shared expectations so that these moments can be handled with dignity and compassion. It leads to mutually beneficial conditions for both employers and employees, and it builds trust and dialogue in workplaces.

The clarity this bill provides aligns with the clarity provided in existing unpaid parental leave entitlements, ensuring consistency across the workplace relations framework. Importantly, it doesn't interfere with bargaining in good-faith agreements. This means that the ability to bargain for pay and conditions above the safety net remains central to our approach to workplace relations.

When we define and protect this paid parental leave, we're recognising the experience of those families instead of erasing it. Going through pregnancy and childbirth and adjusting to new life with a baby is challenging. It's transformative and, for most families, it's joyous. But to go through that experience with loss instead of new life, with grief instead of joy, and to be forced to an immediate return to work is horrific. Friends of mine have gone through this experience. Colleagues of mine have spoken in this chamber about people in their communities that have gone through this experience. You'd think this bill would have received unequivocal support from every member of this house, because the horrors that Baby Priya's family went through—those horrors that I saw my friends go through—are not something I would wish upon any Australian.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking to one of my best friends—a wonderful doctor who works on maternity wards in Melbourne hospitals—about the legislation. As she was speaking, her eyes teared up, and she said: 'I look after patients who lose their babies. There's so much that we try to do to provide care to them and to try to help them in that moment. It shocked me that, after everything they go through, after all the care we provide, a workplace would actually expect them to go back to work within a few days of going through that. It's just awful.'

Instead of unequivocal support, this House and the Australian public have been subjected to some truly sickening comments from those opposite. Those opposite just don't get it. They don't get that for a parent to be told by their employer, 'No, you do not have the time and space to grieve,' or for a woman to be trapped without the opportunity to physically recover from a traumatic childbirth is abhorrent. The lack of compassion and empathy that has been shown by these members is astounding. Their comments are unworthy of this place and unworthy of the people they represent. But we won't let their comments take away from this moment.

This is a proud moment. It's a moment to recognise that the Labor Party is doing really good things in people's lives right across Australia—for women and families in their most vulnerable moments. This piece of legislation will affect so many Australians' lives for the better.