Remember the Perth rally against breastfeeding discrimination back in April? Mandy Crabtree was ejected from a cafe for requesting to breastfeed her baby, and the Premier responded to public outcry by saying that women should breastfeed in a “discreet, modern way”, and that legislation to ban discrimination was unnecessary. The Attorney-General has been trying to say that a law change is unnecessary “because the right to breastfeed is already protected” – which it pretty obviously is not. WA is the only state without current or pending specific legislation to protect breastfeeding mothers.

The Labor Party resolved to introduce legislation to add breastfeeding explicitly to disallowed bases for discrimination, but the success of that has been very much up in the air this week.

At another Parliament House rally today, it has been revealed that the Libs have finally bowed under pressure and plan to drop their obstinate obstruction of the law change. Premier Barnett poutily claimed that the change is purely “symbolic”.

Congratulations to all the activists who have worked so hard to pin the government to the wall on this one.

Categories: gender & feminism, law & order, Politics

Tags: breastfeeding, breastfeeding in public, discrimination, equal opportunity, law, legislation, parliament, prejudice, protest, rally, reproductive justice, WA, western australia