Twelve hours of induction, of pain, of my body being pushed to its limit and then an emergency caesarean I was not prepared for—I remember shaking on that operating table, not from cold but from adrenaline and fear as they cut through seven layers to bring my daughter, Aaliyah, into the world. Then came the part nobody warns you about. My husband was sent home, and I was left alone at 2 am, numb from the waist down and holding a newborn who was hungry, and I had no idea how to breastfeed her. In the bed beside me, another first-time mother faced the same night, the very same silence and the very same fear—two women, two babies, zero support. Let that sink in, colleagues.

We ask women to survive major abdominal surgery and then, within hours, to feed, soothe and lift a newborn completely on their own. I don't blame the midwives or the nurses. They're stretched thin, doing the work of three people on every shift. This is not a staffing failure alone. This is a systemic failure, and it doesn't end at discharge. It becomes the mental load that follows you home. Am I feeding her right? Am I a good mother? Am I doing any of this properly? It's sleep deprivation that studies liken to driving drunk. It's the quiet triumph of a shower before 3 pm. Mothers carry this, and they carry it silently, because we've told them that, unless you've lived it, you won't understand.

We need to stop asking women to soldier on in silence. We need to fix the system underneath them. Let's start with paid reproductive leave. The ACTU has been calling for this. It is a dedicated national entitlement so women aren't forced to burn through sick leave or go without pay to manage pregnancy, birth recovery and the health conditions that come with reproduction. This should not be a luxury but the dignified right of every woman. Secondly, let's accommodate partners in hospital rooms. No woman should ever be left alone, numb and bleeding, hours after major surgery, trying to keep a newborn alive through sheer will. Partners are not visitors; they are essential care. Finally, we need to prioritise informed consent. Asherman's Syndrome Australia has spoken out about the continued routine use of sharp curettes in procedures following miscarriage, retained placenta and postpartum haemorrhage, despite the World Health Organization and numerous clinical bodies warning that sharp curettes carry a significantly higher risk of scarring the uterus than safer alternatives. Women are waking up from these procedures to find out, sometimes years later, that they can no longer have children, and they were never properly told of the risks that existed. Every woman deserves to give full informed consent before an instrument like this is used on her body. That starts with reclassifying the curette for what it is—a higher risk instrument.

Colleagues, having a baby is one of the most beautiful identity-altering experiences a person can go through. It is also, quite frankly, bloody tough. We do women no favours by pretending otherwise. That is why I welcome the new Senate Select Committee into Women's Health, chaired by Senator Marielle Smith, examining exactly these postpartum experiences. To every woman watching this: your story is not too small, and it is not too painful to be heard. Whether it's just two sentences or two pages, please make a submission. Tell them what your 12 hours looked like. Tell them who was and who wasn't in the room with you, because policy built without women's voices in the room will keep failing women in the room next door. It's time the system finally caught up to what mothers have always known. Thank you.

I take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to Senator Payman for raising these issues around postpartum health. It is a very big issue that this government is really keen to hear about from women, and I want to acknowledge that pain and trauma that you experienced during your birth. It's not an uncommon story. That's the truth of it. I was able to say to you privately after you spoke the other day that I had a very similar experience. The truth is that so many women in Australia are having birth-trauma experiences for a range of reasons, and we really want to understand what those reasons are. The select committee that is being championed by Senator Marielle Smith—but supported around the chamber, it must be said, by women across party lines—will be an opportunity for these stories to be told. There was a very similar inquiry in New South Wales a few years ago, and it uncovered terrible stories of treatment that we hear from time to time in the news but that we just don't hear enough of. The impact of having a traumatic birth or a terrible experience in a hospital after you have a baby can really impact your ability to parent, your ability to bond with that child and the desire to have another child or be pregnant again. That's something that no woman should really have to deal with. Participating in this inquiry is an opportunity that Australian women should not miss. It's an opportunity for the Senate to really shine in what it is able to achieve in terms of policy changes at a state and federal level, and I really do encourage everyone to participate.

While I'm on my feet and talking about the joys of pregnancy, I might just give a shout-out to our colleague Senator Mulholland, who is heavily pregnant right now, and she is still working. She literally stood up at a press conference today. I have given her the direct message that, once that baby is born, it will be time to put her feet up and take care of that child. Hopefully, she will listen to us. I wanted to give a shout-out to her because she is doing an incredible job.

It being 1.30, we will now proceed to two-minute statements.