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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2823 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I turn to the weight of the foetus at 10 weeks. In the regulations that were tabled here today the weight is 30 grams. In Pregnancy: Everything you need to know it is 18 grams, which is about half. In Having a Baby - The Essential Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth it is five grams. At the age of 12 weeks the weight in the regulations is 45 grams. In Current Obstetrics and Gynaecologic Diagnosis and Treatment it is 12 to 15 grams. We can see a very disturbing disparity between the weights in these texts and what we have in this pamphlet. I am not an expert on this matter. I can only say that there are questions being raised here about whether the information in this regulation, offensive as it is, is even accurate.

The pictures look a bit like the cut-and-paste job of a sixth grade student. The pictures are not an accurate representation if they are trying to give a sense of the development of a foetus. The pictures seem to have been taken from different publications and stuck in there as the 12-weeks-old foetus is much smaller than the six-weeks-old foetus. If they truly are trying to give some kind of educational experience to a woman, you would think that more trouble than this would have been taken. This is a fabulous argument for why politicians should keep their nose out of medical matters. We are faced today with a really disturbing situation. I have heard Mrs Carnell say that she wants to see accurate information provided.

I am hoping that Mrs Carnell will now support this disallowance motion so that the Government, if they are going to insist on producing regulations which have pictures of foetuses - and I understand that it is their view that that is the right thing to do - will at least get it right. I do not imagine that they would attempt to amend it today. That would be really laughable. I think we need to see some kind of rigorous process here so that people in the community can be confident at least that this publication is doing a reasonable job.

I had noticed in the regulations that there is the potential for the panel to produce this information itself. The panel has chosen not to do that. I am wondering whether that is some kind of plot and whether, because the Government and its supporters are doing such a terrible job of it, the panel, in desperation, will say, "For God's sake, we will do it. At least we will get it right". One really has to wonder about the process here; it is extremely concerning.

I am asking Mr Rugendyke, Mr Kaine, Mr Osborne and all the members of the Government who are choosing to support these regulations, for the sake of their own credibility if nothing else, to support this disallowance motion until we can get some reasonable agreement from the medical profession and those experts in the area that the information is actually correct. One has to say, given what appears to be an exaggeration of the weight, that it could easily be seen to be a way of manipulating what women will think about the weight of their foetus. It is not as if the inaccuracy is actually reducing the weight. It suits the agenda, obviously, of the people who are supporting these regulations. Maybe we will see this disallowance motion supported so that this can be put right. I really hope that we will see that, otherwise the ACT community is going to be even more worried about the ACT Assembly as it stands at this time.

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