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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 2890 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

defeat it for the disrepute that it will bring to this Assembly if it is passed as much as for how it proposes to discriminate against women in our community. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that is what will occur: We will discriminate against women in our community. If this Bill is passed today, not only will we be imposing a discriminatory and patronising regime of threat, half-truths and fear on women, but also we will undermine and destabilise the legitimacy of this parliament as a representative decision-making forum.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, what is needed today with this Bill is a considered and principled approach which acknowledges the profound consequences this proposed legislation will have, which allows for detailed public consideration, and which allows for the right to be consulted, to voice opinions on the specific, not just the general, proposals, and to inform and to be informed. On that principle alone, if this Bill is to be approved at the in-principle stage, it must be adjourned today for a sustained period of public inquiry and comment, because I believe that nothing less would be an insult to this Assembly and the notions of representative and participatory democracy for which we purport to stand.

I would now like to address in greater detail the consequences of this Bill if it is enacted. This Bill predominantly, up front, proposes to highlight the primacy of the Crimes Act. Through its preamble, it asserts the primacy of the Crimes Act. As a consequence, it does nothing more than invite the launching of prosecutions of the crime of abortion to test the new law. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, this preamble attempts to subvert the groundbreaking common-law rulings which have, effectively, provided women in the ACT with safe and legal abortions. It attempts to subvert the rulings in the Levine case which have provided, effectively, for safe and legal abortion in the Territory. It seeks to again make illegal abortions which have had the sanction of common law for over two decades. I have no doubt that it is exactly the intention of the Bill's proposers and supporters to bring into question those common-law findings. It is an insidious proposal which seeks directly to make currently legal abortions again illegal. I cannot support it and nor should other members of this place.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to move on now to some other aspects of the Bill which I have further concerns about. The first is in relation to approved facilities. The Bill specifies that abortions can be performed only in an approved facility. This is defined as a medical facility or part of a medical facility as prescribed in regulation. There is no clear indication at all that the clinic which currently provides abortions in the ACT will fit into that criteria. Indeed, there is no guarantee from the proposers of this Bill or those who have stood up in this place today and supported it that the clinic will be able to continue to operate. In fact, they have assiduously avoided mentioning it. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that gives me grave cause for concern. I have no doubt that if this Bill is passed today the ability of the clinic to continue to operate will be under severe threat.

I move on to the provision of information. Clause 8 of the Bill imposes a statutory obligation on the medical practitioner to inform the woman of specific information. This provision I find an insulting and patronising one. Not only that; it is highly impractical. It is impractical because it specifies what sort of information should be provided, for instance, in relation to an alleged link between abortions and breast cancer.

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