Page 4008 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES (4.21): Madam Speaker, I think it should be made perfectly clear once again, as far as we on this side of the house are concerned, that we are not reopening the debate per se about HIV notification. That debate was had out on the floor of the Assembly a few weeks ago. It was clearly resolved in favour of the present regulations which the Minister has produced and which now form the basis of the law in the Territory. I, for one, and I know that I speak for my party, have no intention of reopening that issue. The law quite clearly, it seems to me, is stated now in terms of those regulations.
The issue, however, is what the situation was before those regulations were promulgated and where the Government and, in particular, the Minister for Health stand with his earlier position, which was, it seems to me, that it was possible not to have HIV notified during that time before the regulations were enacted because it was the Government's policy that it not be notified, not that it was, in fact, the law of the land that it be notified.
Mr Wood: What did you do as Minister?
MR HUMPHRIES: I will come to that. Madam Speaker, it seems to me that Mr Berry's defence has been this: "Because the correct view is that HIV/AIDS should not be notifiable, as a matter of principle, I, the Minister, was justified in pursuing that policy and making that the policy of my department irrespective of what the law actually said on the subject". Madam Speaker, if that is what is being advanced by the Minister, it is a proposition which is extremely serious and which, I think, must be rejected by this Assembly. The Chief Minister shakes her head and says that that is not the defence. Unfortunately, I have not heard anything else, and I do not know what else has been put forward. We have heard that the argument - - -
Ms Follett: Terry Connolly just did it.
Mrs Grassby: You obviously did not listen.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, Mr Connolly and Mr Berry were both heard in silence by this side of the chamber and I would ask that the same courtesy be extended to me.
MADAM SPEAKER: Of course, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, the argument was advanced that we were right to not make AIDS notifiable. That is an argument which, I think, has been won in a sense on the floor of this Assembly by the Government. That is final and that is out of the way for the purposes of this debate.
The other argument is this: Was the Minister justified in taking the steps that he did to act on that policy when the law stood against him at that time? I will make it quite clear that Mr Wayne Berry has conducted a very consistent and determined campaign to make sure that AIDS not be notifiable in the ACT. I will give him credit for that. Ever since the issue first became relevant he has consistently maintained that.
Mr Wood: It is notified in coded form. Get it right.
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