Page 697 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (9.52): Madam Speaker, I will be brief but I just want to make a point before Mr Connolly gets to his feet. I am going to ask him for some information. The twists and turns that debate takes sometimes are curious. I am rather fascinated by Mr Moore challenging the Minister to get the Bill up and running. I will be watching with great interest to see how quickly he can do that.
The point I want to take up, though, is this question about gay and lesbian adoptions. I understood the chairman of the committee to say that this arose in a late submission. This was after the Bill, in the Minister's view, should have been put and passed. There was a committee inquiry. That inquiry put a date on submissions, and this one submission that raised this point was a late submission.
Ms Ellis: I said that there were three, but I mentioned only one.
MR KAINE: I think you said that there were three but only one raised this particular point. I ask Mr Connolly whether he could clarify the issue when he speaks. The Bill came to us, we are told, after a long period of community consultation. Was this question ever raised during this long period of consultation? If it was, why did the Government discount it? We would be interested to know why the matter was discounted by the Government and not included in the Bill in the first place, if it was a significant issue raised during that consultation period.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.53): Madam Speaker, it gives me much pleasure to table the Government's response to report No. 3 of the Standing Committee on Social Policy entitled Adoption Bill 1992. My prepared speech says, "It gives me much pleasure". I should extemporise somewhat after Mr Moore's impassioned attack on me. The word "scurrilous" was bandied about. Mr Moore, when this Bill is finally passed by this Assembly we will have it up and running within two to three weeks - and I see vigorous nodding from my departmental officials, who have already been working well and truly above and beyond the call of duty to get the Bill this far. We have the funding available. We will be ready, provided there are not any last minute changes. We will be able to get the Bill, as it has been produced by the Government and as it will be amended by the comparatively minor amendments that have been suggested by this committee, through.
I will not canvass whether the Bill should or should not have been delayed in its passage and whether it should or should not have been sent to the committee, other than to say, Mr Moore, that by our actions we shall all be judged; and people in the community who have taken a real interest in this issue will, I am sure, reach their own conclusions.
Before continuing with my formal response, I shall answer Mr Kaine. He asked whether the issue of gay adoptions had been raised in the long community consultation process. The answer, Mr Kaine, is that it had; and my recollection, although I will double-check this, was that there was circulated at one point a summary of the community consultation process that did canvass the fact that some people - in fact, I think the ACT Discrimination Commission - had pointed out that there was direct, express lawful discrimination in the Bill in that the Bill limited adoption to heterosexual couples.
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