Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by welcoming the New Zealand Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Helen Clark, to Canberra.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Slipper interjecting

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are having lunch with her tomorrow, Mr Slipper. As a female Prime Minister, Ms Clark is an all too rare phenomenon. In the Australian parliament we have never come close to having a female Prime Minister, and I am afraid that unless we support women by providing child care in our place of work we never will.

The Australian parliament should be a role model employer for all Australian businesses. We already are in many ways. We have made Parliament House accessible by providing talking lifts and wheelchair accessibility. This House has spent $2 million on refurbishing the Health and Recreation Centre, $11 million on a security barrier around Parliament House and $3 million on the southern courtyard. All this expenditure is to improve the environment of those who work here. But enough is enough: I refuse to spend any more money on appropriations for Parliament House until we have a world’s best practice child-care centre installed in this building. If you want women to crack the glass ceiling, you do not wait for them to start careers after they have had children. You make sure they have access to child care so they can consistently spend time in the workforce throughout their careers as well as raising children.

Parliament House is supposed to be representative of the diversity of our society. Half of the population is female but much less than half of our politicians are female. In 1985 in Australia, 45.6 per cent of mothers with children under 15 worked. In 2003, that figure was 63 per cent. And the reality is that that figure is going to keep increasing. In Sweden, 82 per cent of mothers with two or more children are working.

If you are wondering where all the talented, experienced females are, they have gone to raise their kids. When they choose to return to their careers, they start behind the eight ball. Men of the same age have raced up the career ladder because they have been able to work while women are raising children. We do not have equal opportunity because we have a playing field where some players spend more time on the bench than others. In the current environment, a mum returning to politics is not going to have enough time in her career to become Prime Minister of this country. I and the other mothers in this parliament have struggled to maintain our careers while we raise our children. I have been told to use the child-care centres in surrounding suburbs when my children are here. For six years, I have relied on family and friends to amuse my children while I perform my duties in parliament.

It is time for the parliament to reflect on the needs of the mums who work here as well as on the realities of life outside parliament. I have said that this government needs to take a new approach to child care and listen to the mums who use it. I believe in workplace based child-care solutions. Every woman I know who has successfully balanced work and family has done so with the support of her employer. We need to be heading in the direction of workplace based child care and employer involvement in child-care solutions.

This parliament frequently justifies enormous expenditure on Parliament House because it must be held up as a ‘world’s best practice’ workplace. The argument for any future improvements is no longer sustainable unless we have world’s best practice child care in this workplace. I call on all parents in this House to vote against spending any more money on this building until we have invested in a child-care centre for the parents who work here. Let us provide a role model for the workplaces of Australia in supporting work-family choices.