Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also want to talk about babies in my adjournment debate speech tonight, just as a previous speaker did. This will be one of the last contributions that I get to make in this place before I start my second round of maternity leave, and I want to say just a few things about what it means.

I feel very privileged to be a member of parliament and have the support that we get in this place and in our electorates—and I acknowledge the Speaker is in the chair—to be MPs and new mothers. It's never easy to have a bub. It's always challenging and it's always nerve-wracking—and that's regardless of whether it's your first or your second, and in this case it's my second—but I feel that we have options in this place that many other women and many other families don't have. We can bring our babies to work as soon as we're comfortable. We can stay a little bit longer at home if we choose to. Virtual parliament has now given us another option to consider, so we can work with families based upon what is going to work for them and in their best interests. We can have a cot in our offices. We have a childcare service here. The childcare centre is just brilliant, and it's flexible. You don't need to sign up for 52 weeks of the year; you can have your little one in child care whilst you're here at work. And the educators in the centre are fantastic. These are the kinds of reforms where we are being a nation leader, and we can be more supportive to women in our communities.

I feel quite lucky to be going through this pregnancy in Bendigo at the moment, because we are going through bit of a baby boom. We have a number of expecting mothers in our region. Bendigo Health say this will be the biggest year of births that they've had ever. In fact, two other members of my staff are expecting babies. We have a baby due in April, a baby due in May and a baby due in June, so I do feel for my office manager having to manage our maternity leave as well as juggle different appointments. The conversations in the office have changed. They're exciting conversations; they're nervous conversations. There's a great sisterhood and fraternity in our office about what to expect. For Erin, it's her first; for Flick, like me, it's her second. I know that to have that safe space—that inclusive space to share the days when you just really struggle to get out of bed, the days when you're just not feeling yourself—is unusual because it's not every workplace where women go through pregnancy together. It has been a real lesson about what we can do better in our community.

There's also more that we can do once mums have the babies. One of the things that we're all quite nervous about, as is every woman who's pregnant right now, is that we still don't have a date for the Fluvax. I know that most people are talking about the coronavirus vaccination, but for pregnant women, who've been advised not to get the coronavirus vaccination, our focus is on when will we get the Fluvax. The 2020 Fluvax has expired; it expired on 31 January this year. We still don't have a date for when the 2021 vaccine will be available. Best advice from the government is late March or early April.

This vaccination is critical. Like in lots of situations, this is how mothers can pass on antibodies to their unborn babies. Babies cannot access the flu vaccination until they are six months of age, so this is one way that we can help our little ones once they're on the outside. It's doing things to help in that space—maybe it will be less this year because of coronavirus, but we can't drop the ball when it comes to the ongoing care of young children.

I wanted to pick up on one comment, just to say this as someone who is expecting and at 33 weeks. I appreciate that in South Australia they've just been through a tough debate, and a previous speaker talked about abortion on demand. It's never on demand; I could not imagine being a woman in the situation of having to make a choice about terminating a pregnancy. To say it's on demand diminishes the trauma that that person would be going through in feeling that they can't continue with a pregnancy. Pregnancy is a wonderful thing and children are wonderful and should be celebrated— (Time expired)