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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 2985 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

and some of his supporters that you need to guard against backyard abortions as if they are going to be a growth industry. Under the current arrangements there is no evidence that backyard abortionists are operating in unapproved places or carrying out anything untoward. I am troubled by what you told us earlier, Mr Humphries. You said that this Bill was not going to mean anything to the provision of abortion services other than the requirement to provide information.

Mr Humphries: I did not say that. I do not know where you got that from. I did not say that.

MR BERRY: Okay. I think you said that it was not going to impair the operation of the abortion clinic.

Mr Humphries: In approved facilities; that is right.

MR BERRY: While ever that clinic has been there, there has never been any suggestion to me - indeed there was not any such suggestion before it was there - that people have been carrying out these services in unapproved facilities. When the only approved facilities were in public hospitals, people had to go elsewhere. Are you not being a little bit paranoid about this? It strikes me that it is covered elsewhere, and I just cannot understand why you are pursuing it. Why are you panicking about this?

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General, Minister for Justice and Community Safety and Minister Assisting the Treasurer) (12.15 am): Mr Speaker, I am extremely suspicious of the argument that because we have not seen any cases of backyard abortions before they are unlikely to take place in the future. The fact is that we do not know whether abortions have been conducted in inappropriate places in the past. If someone has an abortion in that way and manages to survive it, presumably they might have reasons for not wanting to disclose it to anybody else. I do not think we can draw any conclusions from the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, there have not been any prosecutions in recent years for conducting abortions in a particular way.

I am not aware of any other place where legislation like this would be covered. I ask members to look at that clause as it stands. If a person who is not a doctor conducts an abortion, then the penalty is five years' imprisonment, but if a person conducts an abortion in an entirely inappropriate place, without proper facilities, without proper sterilised equipment, without opportunities to provide emergency care to a woman should there be some emergency or some sudden relapse in her condition, then we are providing for a maximum penalty of $5,000. It seems to me grossly out of proportion. I would say to members that we should think about being consistent here. Even in other legislation that Mrs Carnell referred to, the penalty was actually $5,000 or six months' imprisonment. That was just for a doctor not being registered when conducting an operation. Mr Speaker, I think there is a case for preserving some seriousness, and I do not think $5,000 does it.

Amendment agreed to.

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