Angry ‘breast-feeding mothers’ are set to protest outside the Sunrise studios on Monday morning after David Koch made comments that women should be discreet when breast-feeding in public.
His remarks followed a Queensland story about a woman who was told she couldn’t breastfeed her baby at Bribie Island pool last weekend.
Liana Webster told the Courier Mail last week, “A staff member came up to me and told me I wasn’t allowed to feed there, that I had to refrain from feeding out in the open.”
She has since received an apology from Moreton Bay Regional Council.
The story drew comment on Sunrise on Friday when Koch said it was ”fair enough” that an attendant had asked her to move.
“I totally think women should be able to breastfeed in public but I just think they should be a bit classy about it,” he said.
”I’ve never seen it done in such a high-traffic area,” he said.
The issue was debated on Sunrise during Kochie’s Angels but all three women, Sarrah le Marquand, Kate Waterhouse and Sarah Wilson all disagreed with Koch.
Liana Webster also posted on the Nurse-in Facebook page, ”I was … in an indoor pool with approximately seven people in and around the pool, which I would not exactly call ‘high traffic’. You do not know the facts so you may as well not comment,” she wrote.
Koch has since posted on Twitter:
For those who obviously didn’t see @sunriseon7 & are getting my comments 2nd & 3rd hand I did NOT say women shouldn’t breast feed in public
Women should be able to breast feed in public. I have 2 breast feeding daughters at the moment.
But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect breast feeding in public is done discreetly. I think that’s just a common courtesy to others.
But a Facebook page is planning a protest outside the Sunrise studios from 7am tomorrow:
After David Koch agreed that a Bribie Island mother being told to move to a more discreet area while breast feeding her baby was acceptable, a nurse-in is without doubt needed at the Sunrise studio in Sydney. Join us on Monday morning to take a stand against this unfair view.
All parents – breast or bottle feeding – are welcome. Everyone should (and does, legally!) have the right to feed their babies however they choose, wherever they are and whenever they need to!
We are setting the meeting time for 7am so please aim to be there then so that we can have a huge crowd! Plenty of us are planning to hang around for the entirety of the show though so please pop down whenever you can to show your support 
So far 542 Facebook users have indicated they plan to attend.
Update: In light of some comments I am linking in the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy:
Breastfeeding protection is about enabling mothers to breastfeed their babies and young children anywhere a mother and child have a right to be, with confidence and without harassment. Breastfeeding protection includes legislative and regulatory environments, leave and employment entitlements, and the creation of baby and breastfeeding friendly environments in the health system and broader community. There is some overlap between the concepts of breastfeeding protection and promotion.
Source: smh.com.au
@jezza, totally agree. The need of the infant does not override everything, there is no harm done in making them wait occasionally. Babies do not need to have their feeding needs met the very second they start crying. Also, the safety angle mentioned by Koch is perfectly valid. The mother in question was sitting at the edge of the pool with her feet dangling in the water, hardly an optimal or particularly safe place to begin breast feeding.
Beat up to boost profile and ratings
Interesting this has come into debate. Im pretty sure neighbours do a storyline this week or they have done it last week.
I can not believe that the mostly intelligent crowd here at TV tonight thinks mums ‘whip it out’. Feeding a baby is hard at the best of times, they don’t like the blanket over their heads and again, law doesn’t say, ‘so long as everyone around you is ok with you feeding your baby.’ My poor eyes are subject to man boobs, inappropriately dressed and sometimes barely dressed people… But I’ll be sure to tell my squirming, screaming baby to latch quickly and feed quickly with a blanket over its head, just for you.
I detest Sunrise and I have never liked “Kochie” but I agree with him. Nothing wrong with a little discretion and he has a right to his opinion.
Well there’s one thing i know for sure. Sunrise hasn’t had this kind of limelight in a long time.
I don’t think Kochie should be so heavily and vociferously condemned for his approach. There is no harm in a little discretion or privacy. I do not agree with the needs of the infant over ride everything. Sometimes they just have to wait a little, it doesn’t hurt and they had better get used to it in life, never hurt my kids. I have seen the result of a friends child whose demands were met instantly, he has turned out to be a horrble selfish little/big monster….
What? Mel Doyle said this on her twitter account today:
@melissadoyle: Oh & btw, coming to you on monday from Washington for President Obama’s inauguration! Fascinating & historic.Front row seats on @sunriseon7
Maybe Kochies not going, but I find it all Ridiculous! He’s allowed to have an opinion, I believe the right one.
Can’t wait to se the pompus story ACA will do covering this protest.
I predict that they would take the high and mighty approach and say how wrong Kochie is/was just as an excuse to show the breasts of the protestors.
$0.02
I almost never agree with Kochie, as my many emails to him and sunrise will confirm, and I am speaking as one now in my seventies, and as one who was breast fed till almost starting kindergarten, and as promoted by the local Baby Health Centre along with the associated promoted Weight Gains for children of that era(setting us up for a life of being overweight?)
But in fairness To Freedom Of Commentary, regardless of the topic,(as long as it unbiased and factual) I am also exercising my right to support Kochies right to say what he said, and re-enforce his right of his opinion, and agree that he at No Time objected to breast feeding in public, whilst commenting about this particular occurrance.
Does this same mum remove her other children from the pool when Nature Calls for her, and do they accompany her to the toilet every time? One question that comes to mind, what is the opinion of this breast feeding mum’s partner, about breast feeding Anywhere In Public?
Will these same advocates of breast feeding Anywhere in public, also now Demand that all “Mothers Rooms” be Imediately closed, because arn’t those who choose to use them, also electing to have a similar opinion to Kochie, and choose to discretely feed any equally demanding bub when Hunger Demands a Feed, or attend to other Natural Bodily Functions of a bub. To finally stir the pot, why is it that some who should never attend nudist beaches Always Do, and is related comments by other so called social commentators, as an example of who has the Right To Their Own Opinion?
Didn’t buy his safety angle. Sounded like he was trying to find additional reasons. He is entitled to an opinion and women are entitled to educate him. I take the view the woman can make a judgement on the situation, just as his daughters sound like they do and the woman at the pool sounds like she did. The needs of the infant override everything.
Having seen him say this live and he got shot down straight away by everyone, he was also trying to make the point about safety. He mentioned if someone knocked the mother or the baby started wriggling or she stood up and slipped then the baby would have fallen straight in the pool.
He also did say do it discreetly. He never said women shouldn’t breastfeed in public.
Ugh, sounds like more entitled mothers really.
What’s wrong with asking a woman to use a parent’s room to breastfeed their baby?
Plenty of shopping centres have rooms available for mothers to breastfeed and change nappies.
And if a facility is not available – how about a bit of discretion when breastfeeding. Not everyone loves babies and/or breasts.
When I bf my kids I tried to be discreet (not always easy!!!) Tried not to draw attention to myself. But if others choose to be less discreet its not my place to judge them for it. Kochie’s just a bit too opinionated and obnoxious at times. I do wonder, though, if anyone other than him had said it whether it would have caused such a stir.
Good to see people supporting Kochie. He has a good heart and his comments were not extreme. He is allowed to have an opinion and would be the first one to stick up for womens rights. I think the silent majority will be on his side as he is a man of reason.
I wonder if there would have been the same reaction if these comments was made on “Breakfast”…
ninemsn are even promoting this “nurse in”. Ratings will soar out of curiousity.
Doesn’t David Koch know that men are not allowed to have opinions about women’s behaviour, let alone cristicise them? That’s ‘misogyny’ don’t you know? If a man speaks in a forest and there’s no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?
While I don’t agree with Kochie’s comments, he has every right to make them. He’s a breakfast TV host that discusses daily issues.
He’s not in a position where he can force women to breastfeed discretely and he’s not doing anything to try and make them. Why can’t he have an opinion?
I love this era where even the most innocuous of comments can draw a good social media outrage mostly among women…
I can’t believe people care what David Koch has to say in the first place and this is causing a protest but in his defence I think it breast feeding should be done more discreetly. There’s nothing wrong with it but a lot of people don’t really want to see it.
This is a storm in a D cup if ever I saw one. Of course women should be able to breastfeed wherever and whenever they need to, but I agree with Kochie that it should be done as discreetly as possible.
I really do not get why they are protesting. Koch did not just make up a new law saying ‘no public breastfeeding’, he just gave his view on public breastfeeding. Everyone has the right to have a view on it, just because you do not agree, you do not run out and protest.
there is nothing wrong with breast feeding in public but cover yourself with the baby’s blanket, Not every body want’s to see it.
Thank you for posting about this David, especially whilst on hiatus. This has opened a can of worms and clearly demonstrates why breast feeding rates in this country are so low. The law doesn’t protect feeding mothers so long as its discreet, it protects them any way they choose.
Should be fun to see if Nine or TEN send a TV crew out to cover it.
I agree in 2013 this should not be an issue and in the situation as described this should never had been bought up. Hey maybe if one of those offended had just asked the mother to cover up a little more then none of this would have been an issue?
I actually agree with him. He never said to not breast feed, he never said to not breast feed in public. He said to use discretion, which I think is perfectly acceptable.
Children need to be feed but others don’t need to see you whip out a tit before you attach the child.
Discretion and dignity really.