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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 1185 ..

The Birth (Equality of Status) (Amendment) Bill 1998 makes changes to certain aspects of the Birth (Equality of Status) Act 1988 in order to implement an agreement reached between States and Territories through the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General several years ago.

The purpose of the Birth (Equality of Status) Act 1988 is to make illegitimacy irrelevant for legal purposes in the ACT. Section 5 of the Act contains a general statement that a child's relationship to his or her father and mother shall be determined irrespective of whether they are, or have ever been, married to each other.

The Act provides ways in which the parentage of a child can be determined for legal purposes. These are called parentage presumptions. Under certain circumstances, set out in the Act a person may be presumed, in legal terms, to be the parent of a particular child.

After discussions the States and Territories agreed that those parentage presumptions should be consistent across Australia. This is clearly an area where most people would agree that uniformity is important. Legal relationships between family members should not be subject to uncertainty because of variations in the law between States and Territories within Australia.

The ACT legislation was very close to the agreed model provisions so this Bill contains only the fairly minor changes necessary to make it completely consistent.

The Bill separates those presumptions of parentage which arise out of marriage from those which arise out of cohabitation so that a greater range of circumstances can be clearly dealt with. The period used to connect the birth of a child with a particular relationship is expressed now as 44 weeks rather than 10 months.

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