Baby joins New Zealand's Speaker during parliament debate
New Zealand's Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, feeds a baby while pressing over debate on Wednesday (local time). Captured from his Twitter
New Zealand's Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, has again shown his prowess as a baby whisperer, holding and feeding a six-week-old baby while presiding over debate on Wednesday.
While politicians debated fuel prices and defense strategies, Mallard cradled the son of Labor Party politician Tamati Coffey and husband Tim Smith, who was born by surrogate in July, on the Speaker's seat.
"Normally the Speaker's chair is only used by Presiding Officers but today a VIP took the chair with me," he later posted on
along with a photo.
It is not the first time the Labor politician and grandfather of six shared his chair with a baby. Labor MP Willow-Jean Prime's baby daughter Heeni got the same treatment in 2017 after making headlines for being breastfed in the debating chamber.
Coffey told local news portal Newshub he "felt really supported by my colleagues from across the house."
"Babies have a way of calming down the intense environment of parliament and I think we need more of them around to remind us of the real reason we are all here," he added.
Mallard became Speaker in 2017 and worked since on making New Zealand's Parliament a more family-friendly place.
He allowed babies in the debating chamber and opened up more facilities to parliamentarians with children. A public playground on Parliament grounds is set to be opened later this year. (dpa)