Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting the Strip Searching of Children) Bill 2026, Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting Shackling During Childbirth) Bill 2026

Senator PAYMAN (Western Australia—Australia's Voice Whip) (10:09): I rise to echo the words of Senator Thorpe and stand in solidarity with her for bringing these two very important bills, the Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting the Strip Searching of Children) Bill 2026 and the Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting Shackling During Childbirth) Bill 2026, before the Senate.

I want to begin by asking all my fellow colleagues to picture something—a woman in labour in excruciating pain. She's frightened. Her heart's palpitating.

She's about to bring a baby into the world. But she has a cuff around her wrist and a chain on her leg attached to a hospital bed. Tell me what safety that serves and who that is protecting.

That mother is fighting for her life and trying to bring another life into the world. I surely can't answer that, and, from listening to the evidence, I see that neither could the people who gave it. They're absolutely shocked at this government's denial of how barbaric this practice is.

It has no place in Australia, and it should have ended a very long time ago. The fact that we're still debating this is outrageous. The bill is so simple that you would sit and wonder why on earth something isn't being done about it.

It prohibits restraints during labour, during childbirth, immediately before labour and immediately after birth. Tell me, after going through all that pain, what strength you have to then deal with having shackles around you. This would simply be achieved by inserting a new section, 87A, into the Crimes Act 1914.

It's not asking for some revolutionary change but rather a floor beneath which no woman in this country should be treated. It's basic human rights and dignity, and it's also forward looking. It commences the day after royal assent and applies to conduct from that day.

It wasn't long ago that I went through my own experience of childbirth, four and a half months ago. The lead-up to the actual date was just fear inducing because I had to go through this whole induction process. I was exhausted.

I was tired. There were all these complications, and the doctors were so focused on trying to provide that care in that moment. Then came the actual birth process, where I was induced.

Through that induction, there was pain, excruciating pain. I'm telling you, if you haven't been through it or if you haven't seen someone go through it, you won't understand. I thought I understood—until I went through it myself.

It's hours and hours of waiting and of going through pain. It is akin to having all your ribs mushed together. The amount of anxiety and stress that you're going through in that moment is just unfathomable.

I was lucky that in those moments I had the support of my family and I was surrounded by people whose only job was to help me—midwives, nurses, consultants, specialists. Imagine the same room with a guard, a lock and a chain. How is that conducive to any productive experience?

A birth with every support around me left me with so much trauma. I think about a hospital and I get PTSD. The whole process, yes, the midwives were there, and they were wonderful.

They tried to help. But I go through induction and then realise that I had to have an emergency caesarean. Seven layers get cut open.

The baby is taken out. I am literally numb waist down, and they wheel me into the ward. They dismiss and excuse my husband to go back home, and they say, 'Alright, off you go dad.' I'm left with this newborn baby.

I can hardly lift, let alone feed. And you're just expected to continue doing that. So, no, I didn't have the golden hour of skin to skin straight after having the baby, because they were too busy trying to stitch me up.

All the blood loss—you're absolutely exhausted after the experience, and then in the days to come afterwards. And, yes, I had to go back into hospital after being discharged, because I had an infection. And sometimes those infections can be deadly.

We completely forget—if I had a birth where, yes, I had all the supports around me and people who were there to make sure that it was as smooth of a process as it was, and I'm still feeling that trauma, what does it do to a woman who's restrained in chains, shackled, who barely has any moment of joy with their baby? This practice has no benefit for the mother, and no baby benefits from this.

The medical risks are real. Restraints limit movement. We've heard from medical experts who say that it interferes with the health care and delays emergency response.

If I was in shackles, for example, and they had to take me in for an emergency caesarean, I can't imagine how long that process would have taken. And labour is unpredictable. You can have the best labour and birth plan, and then in that moment things can just turn upside down.

And when something goes wrong, clinicians do need to move really fast. Before the birth, restraints can shift a pregnant woman's centre of gravity, and if her wrists are restrained, it just—I can't believe we're having this debate. I just can't, because the flashbacks that I'm having and now adding the extra layer of imagining a woman all chained up—and there's the psychological harm that lasts from an experience like this.

Women who have been restrained during childbirth report severe mental distress, depression, anguish and trauma. So what do we get in exchange for all this harm? Senator Thorpe pointed out there is no evidence that shackling prevents escape or reduces risk, and there are no reports of any unrestrained person trying to escape during childbirth.

Like, are we serious? And we've got the government, who's deflecting responsibility and shirking it off and saying: 'Well, it's states' and territories'. It's up to the states and territories to do something about this.' We know that the states and territories had an opportunity.

Many have policies, but those policies contain exemptions and loopholes, and those exemptions often mean that shackling happens anyway. The committee itself recommended collecting data on how many women give birth in custody each year. That means the Commonwealth doesn't even know the scale of what it says is someone else's responsibility.

Do your homework, people. Come on—you're in government. This is your second term.

We heard about Heather Calgaret as Senator Thorpe was recounting and sharing her story. The severity of this barbaric practice is beyond measure. And how, when this 30-year-old proud Yamatji, Noongar, Wongi and Pitjantjatjara woman died in custody, the coroner's report came out, and he said that her death was preventable.

It came not long after she gave birth to her fourth child. She only had one arm, two hours—and that's all they gave her. We know that the trauma of being restrained while giving birth compounds for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who are overrepresented in our criminal legal system and carry the weight of intergenerational trauma.

This is not just an abstract rights question. It lands hardest on First Nations women and their babies. When we stand here, and we ask that this government do better and stop pointing fingers, we know that it is within your remit.

The Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee who conducted the inquiry—yes, they recommended against this bill saying that it's a responsibility of states and territories—acknowledged that there's need for reform. Who's going to do the reform? Who's going to make it happen?

Are we just going to sit here twiddling our thumbs while women in shackles are forced to be giving birth in such barbaric ways? Senator Thorpe rightfully argued that the Commonwealth can legislate national minimum standards and give effect in law to the human rights agreements Australia has ratified, and that can be possible by a power that the Constitution gives this parliament—the external affairs power in paragraph 51.

We've signed these treaties. We have stood before the world and said that cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment must be prohibited, that detainees must be treated humanely and that the interests of the child comes first. In the explanatory memorandum, it actually lists all these conventions and treaties such as the convention against torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

If we ratify these obligations and then say it's someone else's job to keep them, then we haven't really made them. We really shouldn't be passing the buck. We're not being asked to lead the world, like the government boasts about leading the world with the social media ban.

We're not being asked to lead the world here. We're being asked to catch up. The United Nations Bangkok rules state: Instruments of restraint shall never be used on women during labour, during birth and immediately after birth.

The UN Committee against Torture has criticised the United States for breaching the convention against torture over this practice. And you know what? As of July 2022, 39 states in the United States, including the District of Columbia, have passed legislation banning restraints in labour and delivery, with some also banning it at other points in the pregnancy and postpartum period.

If that reform can be signed by a Republican president, then we know this is not a partisan issue. I implore the Liberals and the Nationals in this place to please support this bill. This is a real opportunity for us all.

Giving birth is the most vulnerable moment in a woman's life. A just society does not chain her to a bed. A just society does not deprive her from that beautiful, joyous moment with her child while she's tied up, chained up.

I urge every senator in this place to support this bill. If there are concerns about its drafting, then amend it. Senator Thorpe has said she has amendments ready.

But please do not use the structure of our federation as an excuse to look away. Every child deserves to be born in a room of care, not a room of chains. (Time expired)