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Greens Senator makes history breastfeeding two-month-old daughter in Parliament

Greens Senator settles baby Alia after breastfeeding her during a division in the Senate chamber on Tuesday.

Greens Senator settles baby Alia after breastfeeding her during a division in the Senate chamber on Tuesday. Photo: AAP

Greens senator Larissa Waters’ daughter Alia may be just two months old but she has already made history by becoming the first baby to be breastfed on the floor of Federal Parliament.

Senator Waters said she was “proud” of the event, which followed a change to parliamentary rules last year allowing mothers to breastfeed their children in the chamber.

Previously, parliamentary rules stated children were technically banned in the chamber and breastfeeding mothers were given a proxy vote.

“We need more women and parents in Parliament,” Senator Waters posted on Facebook.

“And we need more family-friendly and flexible workplaces, and affordable child care, for everyone.”

Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher said it was a moment that deserved to be acknowledged.

“Women have been doing it in parliaments around the world … It is great to see it is able to occur now in the Senate,” she told Sky News.

“Women are going to continue to have babies and if they want to do their job and be at work and look after their baby … the reality is we are going to have to accommodate that.”

The change came after a 2015 controversy surrounding then assistant treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer, who was asked whether she had considered expressing more milk to avoid missing her parliamentary duties.

Another Greens senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, was forced to remove her then two-year-old during a division in June 2009.

In 2003, former world ski champion and Victorian Labor member Kirstie Marshall and her baby were ejected from State Parliament by the serjeant-at-arms over a parliamentary ban on “strangers” or unelected members in the house.

Ms Marshall said she had acted instinctively: “I actually turned up just as the bells were ringing and Charlotte was due for a feed. So I whacked her on the breast and walked in, sat down.”

However other federal politicians have brought their children into the chamber without incident during divisions, including former Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja and former Labor leader Mark Latham.

Senator Waters’ move followed another historic achievement in the Senate on Tuesday morning, with the swearing-in of new independent senator Lucy Gichuhi, the first person of black African heritage to become a member of the Australian parliament.

— with ABC/AAP

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