Governments represent the people, but unless the Australian community has suddenly become overwhelmingly white, middle-class and male, there are a lot of voices missing from the fray.
That’s why Greens Senator Larissa Waters bringing her bub to work with her is so important.
So many Australian mums can’t stop working because they’ve had a baby and Waters is making it her mission to normalise that fact.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive response, there’s been a few ~~ignorant idiots~~ commenters that have taken issue with her behaviour.
^ It’s funny how the trolls never seem to understand the concept of punctuation.
Despite the dangers of trawling through any comment section, we found even more comments disparaging the senator for feeding her child.
^ Not a courtroom, geniuses.
When someone tried to defend her choice to breastfeed at work, there was this enlightening response:
Who knew the answer to childcare was just not having babies? So simple, but so smart.
Ms Waters told BuzzFeed News she had to breastfeed while giving the speech because, “black lung disease is back among coal miners in Queensland and Alia was hungry”.
She added that she hopes her choice sends a message to other young women that they too belong in places of power, including parliament.
“Women have always worked and reared children, whether that work was paid in the workplace or unpaid in the home. I hope [this] helps to normalise breastfeeding and remove any vestige of stigma against breastfeeding a baby when they are hungry.”
However, the overwhelming support she received left her with mixed feelings.
“The fact that it is news that a young woman… can breastfeed in parliament, goes to show how far we have to go in making our parliament look like our community,” she said.
“It’s been 116 years in the coming, and it’s tragic that it’s taken that long.”
