Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Baby Priya's) Bill. The loss of a child is a profound tragedy. It has been described as a palpable, cascading grief that is linked to an equally palpable yearning—a longing that stretches into the infinite. It is everlasting—a grief for what has happened and what could have been of a life cut short. In this situation, in this period of grief, what we aim to do is prevent it from morphing into, or becoming, a trauma. This, unfortunately, was the scenario that faced Baby Priya's mother. Baby Priya died at six weeks of age to a mum who had been employed in an organisation for 11 years. This mum then faced the situation where her paid parental leave was unilaterally cancelled by her employer, yet this was not the situation for Baby Priya's father.

As a result—thanks to their courageous advocacy—we now have this bill before us. We are here in this parliament to right this injustice. We want to, by bringing forward this amendment, reduce the distress of both parents and employers, who really shouldn't be in this position with a lack of clarity around what to do in these circumstances. We want to allow, with this amendment, parents the time and space to grieve and to provide clear guidance to employers as to what they should do in these rare scenarios. Stillbirth is rare. Australia is a country that has one of the safest records for women in childbirth. But in Australia six babies a day are stillborn. They're not viable when they're born. We also know that two babies die within 28 days of birth per year. That totals over 3,000 families who are affected every single year. So it's not negligible. It is rare, but it is certainly not negligible. In moving this amendment, we will be attempting to alleviate some of that distress for those families, giving them the time and space to grieve.

I do want to say that it has been beyond disappointing to hear some of the arguments peddled in this chamber linking this bill in some way to late-term termination of pregnancy. Late-term abortions are not trivial matters. They are not done on the whim of a mother or father. They are a medical decision made by doctors and a wider medical team, usually in a specialist hospital for women. It is a multidisciplinary decision, and it's usually done due to a severe fetal abnormality or if the mother's health and wellbeing are at risk due to psychological or psychiatric problems. This is an extremely rare scenario. It is beyond disappointing to hear some of the misinformation—and disinformation, I would argue—being peddled in this chamber by some members of parliament who, frankly, should stick to their lane.

I will also flag that there are disturbing reports in the media of women who are not listening to their trained midwives or doctors but are instead choosing to be influenced by doulas or social media influencers around having homebirths or freebirths. This has led to numerous deaths both of babies and of women in Australia, and there's no need for this. I would urge the women of Australia to seek their advice from trained professionals—either midwives or obstetricians. We have universal health care; these people are accessible. Don't rely on social media influencers.

I say this because, in medicine, we reserve the word 'catastrophe' for only one specialty. Only one specialty uses the word 'catastrophe', and that is obstetrics. It doesn't appear in the lexicon of any other specialty in medicine. In medicine, our language tends to be very dispassionate because, in an emergency, doctors, nurses and allied health professionals are trained to operate under immense stress in order to alleviate a situation. Emotion is taken out of it, unlike in this place. It's completely taken out of it. But the term 'obstetric catastrophe' is absolutely enshrined in obstetrics because, when things go wrong, they go wrong quickly, and it's often too late to wait for an ambulance to come to save the day—just too late. I won't go into the graphic details, but it gives an indication of how important it is to, in that antenatal period, seek your advice from the professionals.

Back to this bill—in the situation of a stillbirth or an infant death, we want families to have certainty. We want employers to have certainty as well. This bill will provide that kind of clarity by preventing the unilateral cancellation of paid parental leave. And it builds upon the other supports that this Labor government has introduced for working parents, principally the expansion of paid parental leave, which currently sits at 24 weeks and will go up to 26 weeks next year, and the numerous reforms we are making to early education and care to better support working families.

It's important to understand what this bill does not do. It does not interfere with existing bargained entitlements. There are many employers who already offer express stillbirth leave entitlements, which will be unaffected by this reform. It does not prevent employers and workers from bargaining and agreeing to conditions in good faith. It does not create a requirement for employers to begin providing employer funded PPL, paid parental leave, if it is not already provided. The bill also prevents employers from undercutting this reform by unilaterally changing the existing terms and conditions of employment after commencement.

I want to conclude by thanking the courageous advocacy of Baby Priya's mother and father—for bringing this to the attention of our government and our parliament. Baby Priya is not here to see this, but this bill will preserve her memory. I commend this bill to the Senate.