Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ruby Elizabeth Bukowski-Gorman was born at 5.28 pm on Thursday 3 December 2020. Jess and I couldn't be prouder; neither could grandparents Diane and Danny, Wendy and Ron. Our three-year-old, Leo, is working overtime to prove that he is a good and helpful big brother. When I was first elected to this place, I spoke of Leo in my first speech and of the world I wanted for him and his friends and of a commitment to try and be an engaged parent and an engaged parliamentarian, because I believe that every child, every parent and every community benefits from us building workplaces across this nation and having workplace laws that enable Australians to be fully engaged parents and have fulfilling careers. I do have some parental guilt, now, that my second child, Ruby, didn't feature in that speech—for obvious reasons, it wasn't possible! But I need to acknowledge her existence now.

Following that, I took more than three months away from this place, being a parent—playing Magna-Tiles with Leo, and monsters, hide-and-seek and the rest—and of course introducing Ruby to our friends, our family and our local favourites: The Old Laundry, Miller and Baker, the Rosemount Hotel. For a period of time, after Australia Day onwards, I slowly returned to community work. And it is now fabulous to be back here with you, Mr Speaker. I know parental leave is not a luxury that every person working in Australia has, but it is something that every Australian should have the opportunity to do.

I want to thank the people of the Perth electorate for being so generous to me in enabling me to take that time with my family. I also want to thank my colleagues in this place on both sides, but particularly the Leader of the Opposition for his support. I'm not the only one in this parliament or on this side of the House who has done this in recent times; the member for Lilley, the member for Jagajaga, the member for Canberra, the member for Burt and Senator Smith are all taking parental leave.

I think it has been an opportunity to pause and reflect—something that we don't do enough of in this place, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have done so. But it also makes me pause and reflect on the fact that we do need to continue to raise the standards in this place. This is a building I love. I love the parliament. I love the work that is done here. I met my wife working here. But the reality is that this building has become, for many millions of Australians, a symbol of a culture of secrecy and disrespect. We need to change that. We need to raise the standard here with some honesty, some reflection and some truth-telling so we all can, once again, love this democratic workplace. That means that we need to increase our expectations of ourselves—to be role models, to be good community leaders, to be active citizens.

It was somewhat in this spirit that, on 8 March, Jess, Ruby and I attended Edith Cowan University, thanks to an invitation from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Cobie Rudd, who invited us to their International Women's Day event. Edith Cowan University is a great Australian university, named after a great Australian. Edith Cowan was the first woman elected to any parliament in Australia. It was 100 years ago last week. She wasn't just a great Australian elected to parliament; she was elected to represent a great community. She was elected as the member for West Perth within the electorate of Perth. At the speech at Edith Cowan University honouring this 100-year milestone, we heard from Libby Lyons, the director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Her message was that we need men to take more parental leave if we are to achieve true gender equality. I note today that the Business Council of Australia have come out with a very similar message, saying that we need to provide more parental leave, enabling men and women, too, to have time with their kids in those early months. I agree.

On this front, I believe that we need to talk about 'parental time' rather than 'parental leave'. You are not walking away from your workplace; you are just spending time doing something else. You're not on holiday. You're not sick. You are just caring for your child.

I'll finish by saying we talk in this place about the world we want to build for our children and how we make sure that we invest in early childhood education and create opportunity and a safer world. But we also spend a lot of time on debates which, I hope, will be well and truly history by the time Ruby is 18 and able to vote at the 2039 federal election—maybe voting to give Prime Minister Thwaites or Wells a second term! I just hope that, whatever it is, the debate on climate change is science based and is well and truly over, with a proper, bipartisan consensus, just like on Medicare and the NDIS.