‘Suck it up!’ Pauline Hanson slams calls for family-friendly MP hours

Pauline Hanson has warned politicians to “suck it up”, as she slammed calls for more family-friendly hours in parliament.

The outspoken One Nation leader weighed in on Queensland Liberal National Party president Gary Spence’s recent push for his party’s politicians to enjoy a later start on Mondays and more video conferences, in what would be huge reforms to parliamentary sitting arrangements.

He hopes by changing the hours, they could attract more women and people with young families to stand for the Liberal Party.

While Spence’s policy plea gained support from some of his other political rivals, Hanson insisted it would only slow down an already “snail paced process”, and noted that, while it was often difficult, she managed to juggle family life with work herself.

“I’ve been in parliament while raising kids and more recently as an empty nester. I can tell you it’s certainly easier now that the kids are all grown up, but I managed,” she told Starts at 60.

Read more: Pauline Hanson: Labor’s cuts to pensioners will be over my dead body

“There’s no other job in this country that has the flexibility of work hours outside of sitting weeks. The Senate sits for 15 weeks this year and I think politicians and their parties need to suck the hours up. With the amount of legislation before the parliament, we don’t need less hours, we need less games played in the chamber and more productivity.”

Spence’s proposed reforms include allowing senators and MPs to spend more time with people in their own electorates, as well as with their families, in the hopes it will attract more people with young families of their own.

“It’s a choice to be a politician, not a requirement,” Hanson added. “Attracting good candidates is always hard given the media scrutiny, the lack of privacy and intense demand from the job. I can understand why there are very few women willing to put their families through that, but changing the hours of sitting weeks will only further slow the already snail paced process up even further.”

Read more: Hanson calls for baby formula plan over Chinese buyer frenzy

According to The Australian, of the Queensland LNP’s 21 federal MPs, only three of them are women – while one of its five senators is female.

Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt, who has two children aged 10 and seven with his wife, told the publication he fully supports the calls for friendlier hours, but added: “The LNP has a range of other issues if they are serious about getting more women into parliament; something needs to be done about their culture.”

Do you think introducing more family-friendly hours is a good idea in parliament? Or is it wrong to make it one rule for them, and another for everyone else?