Mr SWAN (5:08 PM) —I rise to support this motion not just as a member of parliament or the spokesman on family and community services but also as a parent. The hardest and the most important job that there is in this country is nurturing the next generation of young Australians. There are fewer places and fewer jobs which are more hostile to those nurturing needs in families than being a parliamentarian or indeed working in this house.

The work force trends in this country are ones that are hostile to the role of parenting and, increasingly throughout our whole community, work is intruding more and more into family life. It is very important that we as a society recognise that. We must recognise it in our workplaces and we should recognise it in this workplace, which is why I am so pleased to see this motion on the Notice Paper. It has been a long time coming—a very long time coming. It is a bit of a pity that we cannot necessarily provide the child care within this house and that it is in fact down the road because that in itself, I know, will pose very considerable difficulties for members of this House. Nevertheless, it is a move forward.

We must continue to give much more serious consideration to not just child-care arrangements for this house but the nurturing role that we all play in our own families. There are many practices of this House that are hostile to the parenting role and there will be many more reforms that will be required in this institution if we are to follow through with the most important reform that we could implement as representatives of the people—doing a lot more to assist families with their children and a lot more to stop that clash between the world of work and the nurturing roles of parents. So I welcome this motion as something that is long overdue, although we have got a long way to go.