📣 CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Our voices now have another path to Parliament

📣 CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Our voices now have another path to Parliament

I have a really important update to share with everyone who has signed, shared or supported this petition.

I’ve been contacted by my local MP’s office about the Senate Select Committee on Women’s Health, which is currently calling for submissions from women, families, health professionals, experts and community organisations across Australia.

Postpartum health is specifically included in this inquiry.

This means that right now, there is an opportunity for people with lived experience to tell the Australian Parliament directly what happened to them — what worked, what didn’t, where they fell through the gaps, and what needs to change.

If you have experienced postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, difficulty accessing perinatal mental health care, being turned away from a service because of your baby’s age, inadequate follow-up after birth, difficulty accessing appropriate inpatient care, or any other barrier to receiving timely postpartum healthcare, please consider making a submission.

Your submission does not need to be long, professionally written or filled with statistics. It can simply be your story and your experience.

This comes at an incredibly important time for this campaign. I am continuing to advocate for postpartum mental healthcare services to reflect the medical needs of mothers rather than arbitrary age cut-offs for their babies, and I am preparing to meet with my local MP to discuss the petition and proposed changes.

I will also be making my own submission to the Senate inquiry and providing my lived experience, the issues that led me to start this petition, and the reforms I am advocating for.

But this cannot just be one mother’s story.

If this system has failed you, this is an opportunity to put your experience directly on the parliamentary record.

Submissions close 9 October 2026, and the committee advises that an extension can be requested from the secretariat. After reviewing submissions, the committee will hold public hearings around Australia, and people or organisations who make submissions may be invited to give evidence.

You can submit through the Australian Parliament’s Select Committee on Women’s Health page, or email your submission to womenshealth.sen@aph.gov.au.

Please share this update with any mother, parent, family member or health professional whose experience deserves to be heard.

Every signature on this petition has helped show that change is needed. Now we have an opportunity to put those experiences directly before Parliament.

Thank you for continuing to stand with me. 💙

We are not asking for new illnesses to be recognised. We are asking for healthcare access to reflect how long these illnesses can actually affect mothers and families.

Please submit your story before 9 October. Your experience matters.