Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to associate myself very briefly with the remarks of my friend the shadow minister for industrial relations, the member for Watson, and with the Fair Work Amendment (Improving Unpaid Parental Leave for Parents of Stillborn Babies and Other Measures) Bill 2020.

We all understand in this House, I'm sure, that no amount of leave and no payment will make grief go away. It never will. But the important thing that this bill achieves, and which the other omnibus bill achieved in the equation of payments, is that it recognises that this is real grief—that a stillbirth is a death to be grieved. It is exactly equal in the amount of grief to any other death in any other circumstance. That is what this bill recognises, that's what this House must recognise and that's what every Australian must recognise, because this has not been the case. The difference between government treatment of stillbirth and treatment of deaths after a breath has been taken reflects societal views that, somehow, this wasn't real—that this was not a real grief. It must be remedied, and this bill remedies it.

This bill has been inspired, as other speakers have said, by the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education. I thank Senator Keneally, who instigated it; Senator McCarthy, who chaired it; and Senator Bilyk, who participated with senators from the other side—particularly Senator Molan, who shared his personal experiences. They heard from grieving families about these inequities, and this was important work.

Previously, I shared my experience in this field. I am one of four brothers, only two of us still alive. My mother went to hospital four times to give birth and only came home with a baby twice. She feels, and felt, that her grief wasn't recognised by the system. And she was right; it was not. I'm not going to share with the House all the details, but she was told by doctors that there was nothing to grieve, that there had been no birth and that she could have more children.

When I shared this story, I thought, 'Well, this happened a long time ago'—many decades ago in my mum's case. But I was struck by people who contacted me to say, 'I feel exactly the same way, and the stillbirth in my family occurred just a few years ago in Australia.' Medical professionals, who should know better, didn't recognise the grief. Employers told grieving mothers—and not just mothers but also fathers, siblings and grandparents—to get over it and move on: 'Get back to work; you can have more children later'. That's all completely beside the point. My point is that in partially equating the leave, as the other bill did in equating the payments, this bill recognises that real grief and tells the grieving mothers and fathers, siblings and grandparents that they are understood. Their grief is understood and is something to be respected; the lost little life is to be mourned.

Of course, what we ultimately hope for is that there is less need for grieving—that we actually reduce the amount of stillbirth in Australia. It has been stubbornly high for 20 years; it's higher than in comparable countries and is particularly high among our First Nations. One of the things we need to deal with is birthing on country, to support and respect birthing on country. I'm not saying that's a panacea, but it's among the many initiatives that can get these rates down.

The Senate inquiry recommended a national stillbirth plan to reduce the stillbirth rate by 20 per cent. Of course we want to see it at zero, but let's at least have the objective of reducing it by 20 per cent. Six stillbirths occur in Australia every day, which is more than the road toll and roughly analogous with the national suicide toll, both of which have achieved plenty of attention from governments over the last few decades. Stillbirth has not. We know that if we don't aim to reduce stillbirth rates then we simply won't. So it's good that now we have a draft action plan. The Labor Party has provided feedback, and we look forward to seeing the final plan and, importantly, to seeing it funded in future budgets. Stillbirth rates must come down in Australia if we are really serious about reducing the grief of so many of our fellow Australians.

It's grief that stays with you forever. My mum turns 83 in a couple of weeks and she still grieves for her two sons every day, all these years later, as our whole family does, as every family that's been touched by stillbirth does. Those families who have been touched by stillbirth need to know that this House stands as one with them in recognising that their grief is real and it is very, very deep. We hope that this recognition of that grief goes some small way to assuring those families that they are understood in this parliament.

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