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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2778 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

That, pursuant to the Subordinate Laws Act 1989, this Assembly disallows Subordinate Law No. 15 of 1999, being the Maternal Health Information Regulations 1999 made under the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act 1998.

Mr Speaker, this disallowance motion is the culmination of much debate about whether or not, in the first place, Ministers have the power, under the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act 1998, to make such regulations. There has been debate about that, and I see media reports that there may well be a debate about it in front of the judiciary one way or another.

For the purposes of this debate, I merely put it to members that it was never the intention of the legislation that Ministers would override the expert panel set out in the legislation. That expert panel was to consist of a specialist in obstetrics nominated by the ACT Health and Community Care Services Board, a specialist in neonatal medicine nominated by the ACT Health and Community Care Services Board, a specialist in obstetrics nominated by the Calvary Hospital Board of Management, a specialist in neonatal medicine nominated by the Calvary Hospital Board of Management, a specialist in psychiatry nominated by the territory branch of the relevant specialists college or institution, a registered nurse currently specialising in women's health issues nominated by the Calvary Hospital Board of Management, and a registered nurse currently specialising in neonatal medicine nominated by the ACT Health and Community Care Services Board. Seven specialists have been endorsed as the appropriate decision-making body in relation to the information which women ought to be forced to receive pursuant to the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act 1998.

Let me make myself clear, Mr Speaker. I do not believe that the Health Regulation (Maternal Health Information) Act should ever have been made. There is no compelling reason at all for information to be forced upon women who are considering an abortion. This is the only medical procedure where this sort of emotive information has been attempted to be prescribed by legislators.

I look around this place and I see no specialists in any of the areas which have been prescribed in the legislation who might make a judgment about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate for the prescription which has been attempted by Mr Humphries. Mr Moore, Mr Humphries, Mrs Carnell and I might come closest, as we were Health Ministers, but I am not sure that there are too many people out there in the community who would accept our advice on any particular health matter.

Mrs Carnell is a pharmacist of long standing, but I am not sure that her experience goes to the issue of providing abortions, psychiatry, neonatal services and so on. In fact, she does have a long history of providing medications for various things. If we, here, attempted to prescribe what Mrs Carnell was going to put in her cough mixtures or other mixtures, I wonder whether she would find that acceptable. I would not, because I do not think it is within my bailiwick to make those sorts of judgments about the professional ethics of people who are registered under different legislation made in this house.

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