Green MP feared jail without her baby

Green MP Sue Bradford says her own history as a breast-feeding mother facing a potential jail sentence during the Springboks tour triggered her interest in allowing mothers to keep young babies with them in prison.

Ms Bradford won unanimous support in Parliament for the first reading of her bill, which seeks to extend the length of time mothers can keep their babies in jail from six months to two years.

She said was arrested many times during the Springboks tour. "In one instance eight people were arrested for taking over an aircraft. There were several very serious charges with lots of jail time and we ended up in court in early 1982 and I had a baby.

"She was only two weeks old when we first went to court and I was breast-feeding her. We'd actually got off in the first trial but in the second trial we went back and we were convicted.

"Right at the end when we realised we were going to be convicted, there was a real fear that we were going to jail for some time. It was at that point that I really realised the full horror of what might happen, of having my baby taken away from me. She was just a tiny little baby."

The baby was looked after by trained Corrections staff while Ms Bradford was in court.

The defendants were given suspended jail sentences because, Ms Bradford believes, she was a young mother.

"I think I saved my comrades-in-arms as it were. It's nothing compared to what actually happens. It was just this total visceral sense of not only every day having her taken away from me, but the fact that I might go six months or a year without her and what that would do to me?"

The bill will now go to a select committee. Most parties have reserved their decision until it reports.