Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Siewert, move:

That the Senate—

(a)   acknowledges Australia's National Breastfeeding Hotline which:

(i)   provides invaluable advice to 80,000 mums every year, and is run at an extremely modest cost to taxpayers due to the fantastic work of hundreds of volunteer counsellors who answer up to 6,000 calls every month, and

(ii)   requires long-term funding to provide certainty for this vital service for Australian mums; and

(b)   notes that:

(i)   the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding requires strategies to share maternal lactation costs more widely, such as additional help with caring for children, enhanced leave and workplace lactation breaks, and suitable child care, and

(ii)   although the World Health Organization recommends babies are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of their life, by 3 months of age, 60 per cent of Australian babies are getting some formula milk.