Chen Naisi; O'Connor GregNAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I probably might be the only non-parent that has taken a call on this bill here this morning but I am the proud child of a gynaecologist one who is trained in Western medicine who has been working on the surgery table in the operating theatre and one who's also trained in traditional Chinese medicine—or TCM as we call it. Gosh the stories I had coming back to school from our family clinic when I was helping out at the front desk for my mum helping her patients. Now I don't know if the House knows this but in Chinese traditional medicine we have something called fitting in for a month" or it's better translated into English as "the confinement period". I know that in a lot of Asian cultures we have this thing where mothers need to stay home for a whole entire month after giving birth. So sometimes I do get a little bit astounded when meeting people who are holding their two-week-old baby and coming out to meet us and I go "Aren't you supposed to be at home? Aren't you supposed to be in a beanie?"—because we think we have to protect the head. You have to be kept warm you have to have socks on your feet the whole time and in ancient times we didn't even allow women to wash their hair in that month as well because it lets away the good energy. We feed them very nutritious food: a diet of chicken soup pig trotters—because it has collagen to help with breast milk production—and a special regime. Then the whole family comes in whether it's your mum—so the mother of the mother. So the grandmother on the mum's side comes in to help you with caring for your daughter or even your mother-in-law comes in and helps. In modern day times now in China there are actually special institutions that are set up so that it's almost like a hotel. I don't know if this analogy is right but it's almost like a retirement village where you go in. There's medical care there are nurses to help with teaching and then there are coaches as well to help you take care of the child. Obviously all of the needs of the children are taken care of and there are those special nutritious professionally designed meals for the mothers. Actually it's quite a luxurious stay. At other times we invite what we call "pui yuet" which is directly translated as "monk nannies". These are confinement nannies who come and live in our homes to help those young mothers with their first 30 days after giving birth. So I do think that young mothers in the Asian communities are looked after really really well and often it's the reason why people attribute—not that there's any scientific evidence but it's the reason why people attribute it and say that Asians don't age as fast. We think sometimes that it's because we look after our mothers really well in the first 30 days. That's when all your body's hormones are readjusting and often if you have long-term ailments it's because you haven't done your confinement properly. That's what we believe in our culture. I say all of that to basically come back to the point that I think it's extremely important to give our birthing parents—our mothers—the time they need. Especially for me it's those 30 days which might be in jeopardy because of this bill. There is no actual minimal guarantee for the person who gives birth to actually spend that time at home. My good colleague here—Dan Rosewarne—has just talked about coercion and maybe it's within the family or it could be from society as well. If you're the higher-earning parent maybe you could be coerced into going back to work as well as we know well in this House. I think about my own future prospects and I think about my own career here as well. For these moments I want to make sure that a bill we bring to this House is one that is not half-baked but it is one that actually has had all of the scenarios thought through and that there are actually safeguards within the bill to make sure that the birthing parent has that physical time to get better so that all of the parts are back in line again—not that I heard it ever does—and it should be when we're sure that they're ready to take on the world and that they have some time—as we've talked about it here over and over again—to have that breastfeeding establishment period as well. That's why we've raised the parental leave period entitlement to 26 weeks. So it is a bit of science and it's a bit of I think sage-old experience from the ages as well but we're making sure that when we come to this bill it's one that really looks after the birthing parent. Like my good colleague Emily Henderson has said it's an and/and not an and/or. I really want to make sure that this bill is one that is well-thought-out and that's why I cannot support this bill. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Nicola Willis—five minutes in reply."