NSW Parliament removes the words ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ from breastfeeding policy in favour of gender-neutral language

The words ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ have been removed from NSW Parliament’s updated breastfeeding policy and replaced with gender-neutral terms such as ‘parents’, ‘carers’ and ‘lactating parents’.

The updated policy promises a family-friendly workplace that supports breastfeeding staff and recognises the importance of breastfeeding for both parent and child – but makes no mention of mothers or women.

It instead opting for gender neutral terms such as ‘parents’, ‘carers’ and ‘lactating parents’ throughout in provisions covering breastfeeding support for parliamentary employees.

NSW Liberal leader Kellie Sloane led the criticism with a viral clip posted to her social media targeting the new rules. 

‘So I’m going to say something that should not be controversial, but apparently it is. Only women breastfeed babies,’ she said in a video posted to social media on Wednesday.

‘Well, apparently not according to New South Wales Parliament, who released an updated list of policies today, including the breastfeeding policy, and they said, for the breastfeeding policy, this policy has been updated with gender neutral language.’

Sloane said she supported helping new parents care for their children at work but questioned why the breastfeeding policy used gender-neutral terminology. 

‘I want a workplace where the blokes can feel free to look after their babies. I want them to be able to share the care,’ she said.

‘But the thing they can’t do is breastfeed. So why are we messing around with language? Why are we trying to rob females of something that is really special and unique for us?

‘When government gets the language wrong, when they try to neutralise everything, I think they do everyone a disservice and quite frankly, they make themselves a joke.’

‘This is why we all wonder whether the world is going completely nuts.’