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I failed to see as Minister, I fail to see now, and I fail to see as a father, why there is this mind-set amongst Australia's professional obstetricians, not just Canberrans, that there needs to be an “us and them” mentality, and why we cannot have a more cooperative regime to allow that ease of transition. Certainly, people may take a sound professional judgment that, in their view, it would be better if people did not have home birth; it would be better, in their sound professional judgment as obstetricians, if people accessed hospitals for maternity services. Nonetheless, many women do choose to have home births and make the point, quite validly, that for thousands of years women have been able to give birth without the intervention of modern high-tech medicine.

Everyone acknowledges that there will be situations where there is a need for intervention medicine; there will be a need for a person who had planned to have a home birth, where things do not go according to plan, to go into hospital. It is very regrettable that there has developed a culture of conflict between the professional obstetricians and midwives and many women and their partners or spouses who would prefer home birth. I think Mrs Carnell has to acknowledge, as I am sure she would, that there is more to this than Medicare provider numbers. There is a cultural problem here - - -

Mrs Carnell: That would solve it, though, would it not?

MR CONNOLLY: It would go part of the way to solving it; but, as you would also know, that would then immediately open up the demand for a whole range of associated health professionals to have Medicare provider numbers. So, there is more to it than that. There remains this major cultural problem and this major refusal, really, of many professional obstetricians to cooperate in more innovative methods of home birth.

It remains a matter of great regret to Wayne, who set up the birthing centre, and to me as the responsible Minister for 12 months and also as a partner who sought to use that service, that there are so few - - -

Mrs Carnell: Gary set it up. He built it.

MR CONNOLLY: I am sure that it is a matter of regret to Gary Humphries as well that there are so few obstetricians who will work in that birthing centre. I think that is simply appalling. It was well designed. It was put into the hospital. It was designed to be immediately accessible to the heart of the building. When it was first opened it was at the funny end of the hospital and it was a little tricky to get from there up to what was then intensive care - an experience I am familiar with. But now it is clearly designed to be part of the core of Woden Valley Hospital. There it is, easily linked into the diagnostic and treatment unit, and it is a great tragedy that so few of Canberra's professionally extremely competent and properly well respected obstetricians seem to have a problem with that birthing centre.

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