Page 3630 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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of them - is an excellent Bill. There is no doubt about that. There is no doubt that those issues still need to be dealt with in a lot more detail than can be dealt with by a few amendments tonight. The appropriate way to deal with them is to ensure that we work together on them in the same way that we have done with a series of other Bills in this house, the Electoral Bill being a very good example.
It seems to me that one of the questions that have been raised here by the Minister is that this will delay the whole process. That, of course, is absolute nonsense. The ball is in the Minister's court. We have made very clear tonight that we are talking about some small parts of the Bill. He can easily go back to his department and say, "Right, we know that this Bill is going to go through; we know that it is going to go through by the end of February". I give you my commitment on that. That is the commitment on my votes. That is what I am telling you.
Mr Kaine: How can you do that?
Mr De Domenico: How do you know?
Mr Connolly: The Liberal Party seem to have some difficulty with this, Mr Moore.
MR MOORE: That is right. I am telling you. That is what I am giving you in terms of my votes - by the end of February.
Mr Lamont: Could you repeat that?
MR MOORE: I have said it. It is in Hansard. If you act appropriately now, Minister, and instruct your department appropriately, the community need lose no time whatsoever and we will still come up with the best possible Bill. That is what we are after and that is what is possible. I hope that by the end of February all members of this Assembly will have pulled together and we will have contributed to making this the best possible Bill.
MS SZUTY (8.41): In principle, I too agree wholeheartedly with the majority of people who feel that the ACT needs a comprehensive Adoption Act. The process has been a long and involved one which in reality started in 1986 following the Human Rights Commission review of adoption legislation. As rightly stated by the Minister in his presentation speech, the ACT's laws were a hangover of the 1960s in which governments of the day did not address issues of social policy. Mothers of children born out of wedlock were castigated and their babies described as illegitimate. Thus the 1980s and 1990s have been left to resolve the dilemmas that have arisen from the long neglect of the area of adoption policy.
This proposed Act deals with many issues, although on reading through the Minister's presentation speech it would appear that the proposed Act is about only access to information about adopted children and birth parents. This is not the case. The Adoption Bill covers a wide range of issues including, possibly, surrogacy, as mentioned by Mr Moore, and overseas adoptions. These issues have been addressed in a variety of ways by the different States, but I believe that with this Bill we are hoping to cover all the aspects of adoption for all children and young adults who are in need of parenting by people other than their birth parents.
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