Page 3939 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 December 2021
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passed last year, and it means that Canberrans do now have the option to include both their biological and adoptive parents on their birth certificate. Previously it was just their adoptive parents.
These certificates, if the applicant chooses, more accurately reflect adoptees’ story, their history and their identity. With these amendments today, it will be clear that integrated birth certificates can include information about an adopted person’s date of adoption and details about their birth and adoptive siblings as at the adopted person’s date of birth and adoption.
Secondly, this bill makes a range of technical amendments in relation to applications made by transgender, intersex and gender-diverse young people to the Registrar-General and to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal to change their given names and/or their registered sex on the ACT register of births or on recognised details certificates. These technical amendments help clarify procedural matters before the tribunal and help build on the great work that the Chief Minister spoke about this morning in his update on the capital of equality plan. We welcome the changes presented in this bill.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong—Attorney-General, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Gaming and Minister for Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction) (11.47), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill and the comments made during the debate so far. The omnibus bill does make amendments across 16 pieces of legislation, which primarily sit within my portfolio as Attorney-General but do sit in other portfolios as well. The amendments are, for the most part, minor, technical or non-controversial and will have a positive community impact. I am pleased to say they are also compatible with and, in fact, promote human rights.
The amendments contained in the bill were identified through ongoing consultation with ACT government directorates and agencies and the legal community. I thank all those stakeholders involved in the development of this bill for their valuable contributions and support in improving the administration and operation of the territory’s laws.
The amendments will improve protections and promote better services for the more vulnerable members of our community. In addition, they promote an improved regulatory framework and operation of government agencies.
As Minister Cheyne has spoken about, some of the first tranches relate to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, including integrated birth certificates and also where a young person seeks to change their registered sex or given name. And I think Minister Cheyne has given a good description of those amendments.
The changes to the Guardianship and Management of Property Act remove provisions relating to payment of fees to guardians for the provision of their decision-making functions on behalf of the protected person. This amendment ensures greater protection for protected persons by confirming that fees are not payable for decision-making by guardians, while retaining the ability for guardians to be reimbursed for reasonable expenses. This amendment will also bring the territory in
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