Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Women and Minister for Government Services (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the stillborn baby payment.

Minister Gallagher can't even define the term 'stillborn'. The government conflates a stillborn baby with an aborted baby. I'm confident a lot of Australians understand there is an obvious difference. A stillborn baby is a baby that dies in the womb, the implication clearly being that it was not intended that the baby die. An aborted baby, on the other hand, is a baby whose survival was not intended through the termination of a pregnancy.

But, according to the government, the government's definition of a stillborn baby—under taxation law, of all things, and in the letter I referred to in my question—is a child who weighs at least 400 grams at delivery or whose period of gestation was at least 20 weeks and who has not breathed since delivery and whose heart has not beaten since delivery.

It's based on this definition that women seeking abortions are eligible for a taxpayer funded stillborn baby payment of $4,326. That is one hell of a loophole which I'm confident is offensive to many Australians who don't approve of late-term abortion. What we know is that these babies are being murdered in the womb with a lethal injection and then being delivered as stillborn, so, technically, that makes these women eligible for stillborn baby payments and even maternity leave. There is an immediate need to close this loophole and tighten the definition in A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 to ensure women who have abortions are not eligible for stillborn baby payments. Australia should not in any way, shape or form be financially incentivising abortions via payments intended for parents of stillborn babies.

During my question, I heard uproar from the Greens—of course they're all for the murdering of babies. This is happening. Women can actually have an abortion right up to the day before the actual birth of that child. They inject the child, which is still in the womb, with a needle into the heart which kills the baby. Some are born and left in kidney trays for five hours to die with no help. Let them be adopted out. Disgusting. Shame on the government.