Alia Joy was just two months old when she became the first baby to be breastfed in Australia’s federal Parliament.
Her mother, Queensland Green Party senator Larissa Waters, had returned from maternity leave with the baby in her arms. When the little one was hungry, she fed her right there in the Senate chamber, while the session continued. Waters wrote on Twitter: “I am very proud that my daughter Alia is the first baby to be breastfed in the federal Parliament”.
None of this would have been possible a year earlier. Until 2016, children could not enter the chamber, and breastfeeding legislators had to delegate their votes by proxy. Parliament itself changed its rules, and Waters played a key role in making it happen.
Now she was celebrating from her seat, with her daughter in her arms: “We need more women and parents in Parliament”.
