Bernard Keane reports in today’s Crikey Daily Mail email edition on the eviction last night of a toddler from the Senate chamber:
Sarah Hanson-Young is to be commended for having her child with her in the chamber yesterday. It was for a division, not a debate, and her daughter was about to leave to return to Adelaide.
What do you think? Do you agree with Senator Sue Boyce:
Once again in the Senate last night we had a demonstration of the systemic anti-family attitudes embedded in our current parliamentary processes
Or do you side with Helen Razer?
Well, I don’t think that the primary care-givers of children should be parliamentarians.
Make a comment, join the fray, have your say.
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To those supporting Barnaby Joyce’s accusations of this being a “stunt”: how do you explain the fact that Sarah Hanson-Young has brought Kora into divisions on several occasions in the past without incident? Shows how often Senator Joyce was in the chamber for a vote, doesn’t it? Never let the facts ruin a good story, eh?
I’m horrified at the levels of misogyny and child-hatred I’ve seen in comments threads in every single media outlet I’ve visited, and I’m starting to wonder how much of this is partisan as I can’t imagine so much hatred by so many people being directed at a Labor or Liberal MP for doing the same thing.
The greater concern for me is the lack of organisation of Ms Hanson-Young.
Children in the workplace is both humanising and awkward. Humanising to all, distracting to most, productivity-challenging to all.
Kids should be welcome on special occasions, and a vote in the senate is neither here nor there, but the expectations of Eva Cox and others that “workplaces need to be as permeable as homes: we now are on call at home 24/7 so why not have children in the workplace?” will just lead to homes becoming workplaces rather than workplaces becoming homes.
The separation between home and workplace needs to be guarded jealously, not because it harms the workplace, but because it destroys the home.
The idea that a parliamentarian, someone allegedly working 70 hour weeks, can be a ‘primary care-giver’ is a non-sequitur. It doesn’t matter whether you are male or female; mathematics and an apparent inability to transcend time means that you are not ‘primary’ at that point.
Justin-Paul:
So she’s done it a few times, sure, doesn’t mean anything.
The fact (as you request) remains that this has grabbed the media’s attention, which is exactly what was wanted, whether it was this time or the last is irrelevant.
Here here to Andrew Lewis – she cannot devote herself entirely to both roles.
Hurray for former Senator Andrew Bartlett, a voice of experience.
Peachlives:
How can it be a stunt if Senator Hanson-Young was not expecting Kora to be removed from the chamber? No one had taken issue with her bringing Kora in for the odd division in the past, so there was no reason for her to assume someone would take issue with it now. Where is the evidence that this was pre-mediated? If it was, then Senator Hogg must have been a willing participant as well. Are you suggesting this?
Here’s Senator Hanson-Young’s account of the situation, which I’d say is more reliable than Barnaby Joyce’s (one of the first to brand it a ‘stunt’), who wasn’t in the chamber at the time of the incident (check Hansard if you like – 18 June, page 84).
http://sarah-hanson-young.greensmps.org.au/content/speech/debate-standing-order-respect-visitors-senate-floor
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