Baby bouncers have much to learn about equality
June 21st, 2009The Sunday Age
IN JANUARY 2007, as Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker of the US House of Representatives before a packed chamber that included more than 100 children, she invited some of these children to join her at the podium. As the votes for her were tabulated, she held an infant in her arms and was surrounded by children. She ended her inaugural speech by saying: “For these children, our children, and for all of America’s children, the House will come to order.”
It wouldn’t happen in Canberra. The day after a Liberal staffer sexually harassed several women at the press gallery’s annual Mid-Winter Ball, and the PM used his BlackBerry to photograph the Opposition Leader confronting one of his staff at the same function, the president of the Senate ordered a two-year-old to be removed from the chamber.