Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the government's response to the Procedure Committee's report on provisions for a more family-friendly chamber and I ask leave of the House to move a motion relating to an amendment to standing order 257, in accordance with recommendation No. 1 of the Procedure Committee's report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That standing order No. 257 be amended to add paragraph (d) as follows:

(d) A visitor does not include an infant being cared for by a Member.

Very briefly, I am pleased to say on behalf of the government that the House of Representatives will now be the most family-friendly chamber of any parliament in Australia. No member, male or female, will ever be prevented from participating fully in the operation of the parliament, by reason of having the care of a baby. This has come about because it has been something of a family-friendly season in the House of Representatives in the last 12 months. I congratulate the members for Adelaide, Charlton, Higgins, Kingston, Kingsford Smith, Melbourne and Rankin, all of whom welcomed children to their families. The member for Kingsford Smith has had the particular blessing of adding twin girls to his family. As I, too, am a father of twins, who are now close to 16, which is not nearly as attractive an age as babies, I am sure I will work my way through it. On behalf of the government I congratulate the member for Kingsford Smith on joining that exclusive club. I recommend these standing order changes to the chamber.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to support the motion moved by the Leader of the House. I am thankful for the work of the committee that has come back with the recommendations. It was a good consultative process. We have landed with a very sensible change to the standing orders. It will be a long time, and possibly never, before this job is truly family-friendly. But this is a significant way of trying to improve and deal with some of the challenges that have occurred in recent times.

Question agreed to.