Parmar ParmjeetDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Speaker for this opportunity. I'm taking this call to support this legislation in its first reading. I would like to join my other colleagues in acknowledging Kathryn van Beek and I also want to acknowledge the Hon Clare Curran and Ginny Andersen. I want to acknowledge Kathryn van Beek for her courage—the courage that she had to bring this issue up with her local member of Parliament—and then I want to acknowledge the Hon Clare Curran for taking up this issue and passing it on to Ginny Andersen and of course Ginny Andersen for putting this bill forward as her member's bill. I want to congratulate Ginny Andersen for her bill coming before the House for the first reading. I would like to also add that the timing for this bill to come up for the first reading is great because we are about to go on Christmas break. I'm hoping that the bill will go through the first reading and that it is coming to the Education and Workforce Committee which I chair. So we will be able to open for submissions for this legislation and by the time we come back we will be ready to work on this legislation in the select committee process. So I believe the timing for this bill to come before the House is actually really good. This bill deals with the Holidays Act 2003. This bill is to make an amendment to the Holidays Act 2003. This is the part of the section that deals with bereavement leave and I have to say that this bill deals with a real concern within the community. We understand that when a miscarriage happens in a family it's a very traumatic situation and I want to acknowledge Ginny Andersen for sharing her family's experiences and I also want to acknowledge the Hon Louise Upston for sharing her family's experiences. When you hear about those experiences sometimes you wonder why we have missed out on including bereavement leave for miscarriages in the Holidays Act 2003 for so many years because there are a number of women who go through a miscarriage but as we have also heard from the members it is an issue that is very difficult to talk about. I personally know many families and individuals that didn't disclose their pregnancy only because they were not sure if their pregnancy was going to last for the full term so they waited for that assurance from their general practitioner or a doctor before they went out and announced their pregnancy not only to their friends but also to their extended family members. So to talk about a miscarriage can be quite difficult and the last thing those people want to do is negotiate for the kind of leave they should be getting from their employer. If they have any sick leave left yes they can access that sick leave but if they don't have any sick leave remaining then the only situation they are left with is to take annual leave to deal with the traumatic situation. We know that most of our employers are really good employers and that employees and employers work in a good-faith relationship with each other. But there could be a small proportion of employers—and it could be because of the workload that they have—that may not be prepared to give annual leave to their staff when that annual leave is requested and it can become quite difficult for that staff member to actually disclose that the leave is required to deal with a miscarriage. So with this amendment what will happen is that the employers will be required to give that leave—three days of bereavement leave—to deal with the trauma and to deal with their grief. On this side we highly value work and family life balance. When we were in Government we extended paid parental leave. We also extended paid parental leave to other forms of work arrangements that were not included in the legislation before and this will be another thing that will get added to the Holidays Act 2003 if this bill goes through all the stages in the House. I also want to talk about the difference between a stillbirth and a miscarriage. A stillbirth is when a birth happens after 20 weeks of gestation and the weight of that dead foetus is more than 400 grams. A miscarriage is when it happens before 20 weeks and the weight of the foetus is less than 400 grams. Bereavement leave applies if a child dies so the overall outcome in these circumstances—we cannot compare it directly but the overall outcome I would say if we try to compare it is the same. A family is in a situation where they have lost a child or a to-be child in their family so I believe that this is legislation on which we will receive a number of submissions in the select committee process and I look forward to hearing various views on this legislation. Thank you Mr Speaker.