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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 3023 ..

MR BERRY (2.35 am): Why do we go through this pretence? Why do we persist in placing into these sorts of positions people who have signed on to the Calvary Hospital? You can listen to the tom-toms and you can listen to the public position of Calvary Hospital. They do not do abortions there. They might do a few diagnostic curettes and diathermies. There might be a few of those happening.

Mr Moore: Remember that we changed it to have information leading to full term as well.

Mr Humphries: It is not just about abortion.

MR BERRY: It strikes me that the inclusion of people from Calvary Hospital does not enhance that. All it merely does is include people on a panel who, if their public position is worth anything, know nothing about abortion because they do not do it. Mind you, I would not mind counting the diagnostic curettes and diathermies that are done up there; but they do not do abortions.

MR SPEAKER: Pardon me, but where exactly is this philosophical discussion leading? Are you looking for an answer, Mr Berry?

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, if you want to come down here and enter into the debate, you should trot down here and not try doing it up there.

MR SPEAKER: Are you asking a question of somebody, or not?

Mr Stanhope: They are rhetorical questions.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, I just think the involvement of Calvary people is quite at odds with the information they are trying to provide. Somebody said, "This is because we need somebody from Calvary to talk about full term". Other people know about that, too. They have got a bit of an idea. There are lots of babies born out at the public hospital and at the other private hospitals. The Calvary philosophical position has got nothing to do with the provision of abortion. I do not know why we insist that they have to be involved in it. If their public position is any guide, they would not want to be. So why do we persist with it? Do they want to be involved in it? I suspect not. I cannot understand why they would want to be involved in it.

Mr Humphries: Because they are involved in providing women with support for going to full-term pregnancy.

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries suggests that only the people from Calvary would know anything about a full-term pregnancy. That is a joke.

Mr Humphries: No; but they would know about that.

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