Our first sitting week for the year has been big and busy, with important work on workplace sexual harassment and Industrial Relations coming to the fore.
 
On Wednesday the House of Representatives endorsed draft Codes of Conduct intended to raise the standard of behaviour in Parliament House: a workplace that’s supposed to model best-practice professional conduct but has in recent years been found sorely wanting.
 
The new standards will spell out behavioural expectations for all Parliamentarians and staff, they will be binding, and there will be consequences if they are breached. As a member of the Committee that helped prepare the Codes, I’m incredibly proud to say we delivered for the thousands of Parliamentary employees and for everyone who wants to see politics done differently. This has been on the agenda for almost 50 years. 
 
Childcare continues to be of significant concern to people in our electorate. Families are grappling with rising costs, on top of other cost-of-living pressures, while businesses are facing skills shortages. With this in mind, on Monday I rose in the House of Representatives to call for urgent and necessary reform to the childcare sector, and for government not only to consult with the industry but also act quickly on improvements.

Childcare is fundamental to improving and driving gender equity and gender equity is vital to a strong society and economy. Paid parental leave is also important.
 
To this end, I am hugely supportive of an improved paid parental leave scheme in Australia, and I welcome the government’s planned reforms. However, I think we can and must aim higher. I believe courage and long-term vision is what we should always strive for. Ultimately, 26 weeks should be set as a minimum length of paid parental leave, increasing to 52 weeks based on the Scandinavian shared-care model.
 
As a local mum recently said to me: "Being a full-time carer for a young child is such an undervalued role in society. It's an enormous undertaking to raise a healthy, happy, kind child with both parents working—which you both have to do when you live in Sydney."
 
The summer days have been long in Canberra, but I will be back in North Sydney this weekend and hope to see some of you in Kirribilli on Saturday morning. Then it’s back to Canberra next week!