Perhaps it does not suit Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and her ill informed little band of supporters in defending her defiance of Senate Standing Orders however the public has spoken on the matter in most emphatic terms. Every poll has recorded that the vast majority of voters entirely oppose her misbehaviour in taking a child into the Senate Chamber during proceedings.
That Hanson-Young and others, not the least Bernard Keane who wrote “it was a division, not a debate” have sought to trivialise Senate divisions only gives clarity to the appalling lack of understanding of Senate proceedings. Divisions dictate the fate of “debate”.
Claims that federal politics is “one of the least family-friendly occupations in the country” are simply absurd nonsense.
Senator Hanson-Young receives a generous $160,000 annual salary package, vastly more than she earned in her former occupation as a bank clerk, which provides more than adequate financial opportunity for her to employ a baby sitter. Courtesy of the tax-payers, Parliament House provides an “on the job” crèche and child care centre.
The children of parliamentarians are provided with free air fares between their home base and Canberra. Hanson-Young’s husband is also provided with free airfares from Adelaide to Canberra should he wish at any time to contribute to the child’s care in Canberra. Travel between home, the airport and Parliament House for these excursions occurs in the comfort of a chauffeur-driven car.
Should Senator Hanson-Young wish to have her staff travel with the child in her absence, her staff are also provided with free airfares.
Other than during Chamber time which makes up but a minor part of their day, Senators and Members have direct and immediate access to their children during working hours, unheard of in any other employment.
The children of members of parliament have “the run” of the parliament save for one place — the floors of the chambers. In the case of the Senate, Hanson-Young’s child, accompanied by a carer, is able to sit in the gallery of the Senate just metres away from Hanson-Young during all proceedings.
Senator Hanson-Young claims that she was out walking with her child as the child was to return to Adelaide in ten minutes and that the division had been called unexpectedly and “I didn’t have time to drop her back at the office with the baby sitter”.
The Bill the subject of the division was the second reading of the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising Bill 2006 [2008].
This Bill was introduced into the Senate by Hanson-Young’s own Party. Hanson-Young claims that she was caught unaware that the division was likely to be called. In a News Ltd article, Senator Hanson-Young wrote that “Votes are short. There is no debate and they can happen at any time without notice. So there has to be some flexibility”. To put not too fine point on her claim, in this case it is simply not true.
Having carriage of the Bill on behalf of the Greens, Senator Brown had the right of reply and was therefore entitled to speak last. He spoke for 22 minutes and at the conclusion of his speech he called for the division.
The division was of the Greens’ making. Hanson-Young would have known that her Party was going to call for a division and she would also have known that the division was to take place upon the conclusion of Brown’s speech.
Given, as she would know that Standing Orders limit the period for speeches on the a second reading of a Bill to 30 minutes, she had 30 minutes’ notice of the calling of the division. Equally, knowing that Senator Brown would take all or most of his allotted time, which he did, Hanson-Young would have known almost to the minute when the division was to be called. In any event, she could have asked Brown’s office how long he intended to speak.
In defence of her cry for cheap publicity and entirely misplaced sympathy, Senator Hanson-Young has been less than frank with the public. In her article she wrote that “It’s just that this time the President of the Senate, John Hogg, chose to enforce the rules without warning”. That is not so.
Prior to the cessation of the ringing of the bells and the closing of the doors, as anybody watching the proceedings of the Senate at that time would know, the Duty Clerk of the Senate left his place to walk across to Senator Hanson-Young to inform her that she was in contravention of the Standing Orders and requested that she remove her child from the floor of the Chamber.
Apparently believing her mindless stunt would attract the type of publicity the Greens crave, Senator Hanson-Young flouted the Standing Order, refused the Clerk’s request and allowed the doors to be closed for the division with her child still on the floor of the Chamber.
The division began at 4.45pm and by 4.48pm Senator Brown was on his feet dissenting from the President’s ruling. Senator Hanson-Young had been denied the company of her child for less than three minutes.
Senator Hanson-Young also said “It was awful this week for my daughter to be taken away from me while she was crying”. This emotive claim is of course nothing more than that. The child cried after Senator Hanson-Young hurriedly handed over the child to one of her staff and the child witnessed her mother disappearing behind a closed door; all of Senator Hanson-Young’s deliberate doing.
Wow! A former Liberal Senator thinks the Greens did a stunt. That’s worthy of an article in Crkiey! Not.
We should get former Carlton players to tell us about how well Collingwood plays. Or former nuclear power company managers, to tell us about the merits of wind energy.
If a liberal senator had this happen to them, would this article even have been written? Of course not.
Other members of other parties have had occasion to take children into the chamber. And they have not been asked to take the child out. But this time… not so. The rules have not been consistently applied. So get off this young mother’s back and make the rules more clear. (And as that happens, allow for kids to be present in the chamber for short periods. It is not a chemical factory).
PS – some people have said “it does not happen in my workplace, so it should not happen in the Senate.” Or: “I could never take my kid to work in my day… so it should not be allowed today.” You know… there are two kinds of people in this world: those who are miserable when others can do stuff they missed out on; and those who are glad to see progress even if they missed out themselves. Let’s aim for progress.
Simple fact: Children have been on the floor of the Senate a number of times in the past. They certainly were not removed by order of the President and as far as I know, no one publicly complained. This includes a Liberal Senator having his young daughter jumping around the seat beside him throughout his final speech back in 2002 – a speech that went for over 20 minutes. (I am not criticising that, just noting that it occured without dissent at the time).
This being the case, it was totally understandable that Senator Hanson-Young believed there was no problem with bringing her child in with her during a Division, as it had not been a problem in the past.
I don’t really have a strong view either way about whether there should be some discretion for the President to take the context into account when determining whether a child should be allowed to remain in the chamber, or whether there should be a totally strict interpretation of the ‘no strangers’ rule. There are certainly other Standing Orders where convention now dictates that they either be completely ignored or only enforced when a behaviour or action gets too disruptive.
It wasn’t too long ago that mobile phones were supposed to be prohibited in the chamber. This eventually became widely ignored, particularly once laptops were allowed in and online access from within the chamber was possible. Now, accepted practice is basically that its OK as long as people put their phones on silent so as not to disrupt proceedings.
In any case, it is a matter for the Senate to determine what is and isn’t acceptable, and how it should be enforced. But a Senator should not be attacked – particularly with such viciousness – for doing nothing different to what has been done and accepted in the past a number of times over a number of years without complaint. If the rules are going to now be enforced more strictly, people should be notified in advance of that so they can adapt their behaviour accordingly.
I think what people are missing out on is the fact that Senator Hanson-Young is a LIAR. She said she had no warning – she had ample warning – she deliberately brought her child in with her – it was nothing more then a premeditated publicity stunt.
Regarding Andrew Bartlett’s comment, the thing of it is that Hansen-Young was informed by the Clerk that the child should be removed before the doors closed. She couldn’t have believed there was “no problem” with having the child there after that, regardless of whether standing orders had been enforced by previous Presidents of the Senate or not.
Just a silly bit of theatre really. Good article though – nice to hear from someone with knowledge of the process.
In addition to agreeing with the comments made by Jim Reiher and Andrew Bartlett above, I’d like to point out that a lot of the “polls” referred to were conducted online by news sites. Hardly scientific and they’re the first to point this out.
However, assuming that this holds up should a professional poll be conducted: just because the “vast majority” of the public has a particular position does not validate it as being ‘right’ (Tampa, anyone?). Many elements of Australian society are deeply misogynist, which explains why Crichton-Browne is criticising a woman for bringing her child on to the Senate floor, and not a former (male) Liberal Senator for doing the same. The level of misogynist, child-hating sentiment in the letters to the editor and comments threads is alarming and shows how far we still have to go in this country in terms of gender equality.