By Stephen Brook
In public, she was a success, rising through the ranks to become a state government minister. But in private, Gabrielle Williams endured a five-year “roller coaster of hope and despair and grief” as successive IVF treatments ended in miscarriage.
Williams’ rocky path to motherhood left her on the edge of physical and emotional exhaustion, with nothing left – save one last precious embryo.
Minister for Mental Health and Treaty and First Peoples, Gabrielle Williams, with son Ruairi.Credit:Scott McNaughton
But one last time, she decided to roll the dice.
“That embryo was the last embryo I had, and I was at the point I felt I had to tap out. I was exhausted and emotionally was feeling in tatters after 5½ years, and didn’t know if I could deal with that much loss,” Williams says.
“It just turned out that was a successful round. Had it not been, I would be in a very different position now, which would be accepting that a child would not be a part of my life.”
The minister for mental health and treaty and first peoples turned 40, after welcoming her son, Ruairí, 15 days earlier. She had started her IVF journey with her then husband, but is now a single mother,
“He’s gorgeous,” Williams says after Ruairí (a gaelic spelling of Rory) swiftly fell asleep in her car. “I know every mother says that about their child. I think he is magic. He has a beautiful temperament he’s been a great baby and everything and more I could have hoped for. He is a delight.”
Williams agreed to talk to The Sunday Age, along with politicians from across the political spectrum about whether life for mothers in state parliament has improved since 2003, when Labor MP and former Olympic skier Kirstie Marshall was ejected from the chamber for breaking regulations by breastfeeding her 11-day-old daughter.
Mothers of all political stripes say political parties are much more flexible, but parliament needs on-site childcare similar to the early childhood centre at Parliament House in Canberra.
Shortly after the Marshall scandal, the Speaker allowed infants to be brought into the chamber to be breastfed. That was recently broadened to allow members to care for other young children in the chamber.
State MPs have no formal maternity or paternity leave, and can inform the Speaker or president of their absence negotiated with party hierarchy. Constitutionally, they are only required to turn up to parliamentary sittings once.
The ranks of female MPs could swell even further after the November poll. Labor is touting more than half its candidates are female, while just over a third of would-be Liberal MPs are women.
Williams says she plans to be back at work before the election on November 26, with help from her parents and three older sisters, before taking time off at the end of the year.
Such work conditions do not daunt Nomi Kaltmann, the independent candidate for the seat of Caulfield, who is campaigning while pregnant with her fourth child.
“If you want to get something done, get a busy woman to do it,” she said.
The teal candidate, a one-time member of the Labor Party, knew she was pregnant before she decided to run.
Independent candidate Nomi Kaltmann with her children, Joey, Alexander and Rosie, and husband Daniel. Credit:Simon Schluter
“I really want to challenge that stigma,” Kaltmann, 30, said.
“A lot of men have children in parliament and that is less of a topic. There is still a level of stigma, there is still a level of sexism and a level of judgment that is applied to women who go for higher office while having young children.
“I am a Millennial. Running for office while pregnant and having young children is politics reflecting real life.”
Kaltmann and her husband, Daniel, an engineer, are the parents of five-year-old Joey, Rosie, 3, and Alexander, 1.
Despite misgivings of her campaign staff at prime door-knocking time, school pick-up at 3.45pm is “non-negotiable”.
“If women don’t want to work while having children, I am so supportive of that. But the worst outcome is women who want to work but the support systems, childcare hours, the cost and lack of support forces them to make the decision that they can’t.”
In 2019, Victoria’s parliament introduced further parent-friendly changes, including allocating on-site car parks to MPs with prams, feeding chairs, and a cot and change table in carers’ rooms, and protective barriers in the gardens to “keep adventurous toddlers safe”.
A constant complaint among MPs who are parents is the omnipresent division bells, which could interrupt all manner of child-minding activities. But now MPs can request they are turned off in their offices or other rooms.
Emma Kealy, 45, deputy leader of the Nationals, lives in Horsham, in her seat of Lowan, but still manages family breakfast and dinner with her nine-year-old son, Harvey, and two-year-old daughter, Ella, during the 18 parliamentary sitting weeks. But it has to be via FaceTime.
Emma Kealy, deputy leader of the Nationals and MP for Lowan, with Ella, 2.
On Fridays, she and her husband, Chris, who runs a small business, have no local childcare, so she talks to The Sunday Age while watching The Cat in the Hat with Ella.
“It takes me four hours to drive to Melbourne. During sitting weeks, you don’t get the opportunity to go home at the end of the day and kiss your kids goodnight.”
Emma Kealy with Harvey.
She recounts two instances when she couldn’t be there for her children. Soon after she was first elected, while Harvey was staying with her parents, he developed a hole in his lung and had to be rushed to hospital. Earlier this month, Ella broke her finger, requiring a partial amputation and a pin inserted.
“Not being there for your kids when you know they need you is one of the most challenging situations you can be in,” Kealy said. Restricting parents to one childcare centre means she is unable to take her two-year-old daughter down to parliament.
“There is more focus on women as mothers than male MPs as fathers.
“I adore being a parent and I love being the representative of my local community. I don’t feel I have sent to the scrap heap my role as a parent at all. It actually makes me cherish the time I am with my children.
“I don’t think I am a lesser parent for being a member of parliament.”
Williams says MPs after often on the receiving end of public emotion and vitriol and that can make parenting even harder.
“You can take that stress into your personal life particularly in a social media world where you open up Facebook or Twitter or Instagram and you have got people’s rage and upset and their pain.
“And you have got to enter your own home and be a stable, sound, calm person for your own family. It is a very hard thing to talk about. The strain of that emotional load.”
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