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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4627 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

My interpretation is that the committee was dealing simply with the provisions of this Bill we are considering as it was referred to the committee. No more can be made of its comments than that. In examining this Bill, however, the Opposition has necessarily reconsidered the whole question of surrogacy. As a consequence, in the next Assembly we will act to reconsider the Substitute Parent Agreements Act and see whether it should conform to the principles originally intended for it. I acknowledge that what has occurred so far - the laws currently in place - has been done with the support of the Labor Party in this Assembly. In adhering to those principles, Labor would be reversing at least one vote taken in an earlier debate.

The original intention of the Substitute Parent Agreements Act 1994 was expressed by Mr Connolly, the then Attorney-General, as follows:

... we made commercial surrogacy an offence; we made non-commercial surrogacy not an offence but something we discouraged ...

In fact, it was not possible under the terms of Mr Connolly's Bill. But by the time the Bill was passed that discouragement no longer existed. The then Opposition Leader, Mrs Carnell, successfully moved an amendment which allowed for medical intervention to facilitate surrogacy. Mr Connolly's discouragement had become facilitation - a most significant change, but one agreed with by the Labor Party. Now, we are not so confident about that agreement.

The principles about surrogacy still observed by States and Territories were expressed in 1991 by a resolution of the Australian Health and Social Welfare Ministers. I cite one of its key points:

That States and Territories legislate to:

... ... ...

. make it an offence to arrange or agree to arrange surrogacy services or contract to provide technical or professional services to facilitate the creation of the pregnancy ...

That principle does not apply in the ACT, as a result of the amending Bill.

I want now to question a comment in the report of the Community Law Reform Committee. It said:

The combined effect of the Substitute Parent Agreements Act 1994 and the proposed Artificial Conception (Amendment) Bill is in accordance with the overall spirit of the March 1991 resolution of Australian Health and Social Welfare Ministers.

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