Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2835 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Government today is that it is a question of whether one defines the age of a foetus from the last menstrual period, as is the case in the New Zealand booklet, or from fertilisation of the ovum, which is the case in the ACT Government booklet. The decision was made to base the age from fertilisation simply because it was a more accurate reflection of the actual age of the foetus.

The other issue raised by Ms Tucker - a rather sorry exercise, I would have thought - was that some of the pictures were actually larger than life and that we should make them the actual size. A foetus at six weeks would be 1.2 centimetres long. If we put a picture of a 1.2-centimetre foetus in the booklet at actual size, we would also have to supply a magnifying glass for a woman to work out where it was in the picture.

Ms Tucker: I did not say that, Mr Humphries; you misunderstood.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am glad that Ms Tucker has returned to the chamber. I hope she heard my comments before.

Ms Tucker: But that is wrong. I will explain why later. I did not say that.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, if she was saying that the pictures were too large - - -

Ms Tucker: No, I was saying that they should be sequenced appropriately. You have got them all at the same size and there are different pictures from different publications.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I understood Ms Tucker to be saying something quite different there. I have heard the argument made by other people that we should not have pictures which are larger than the actual size. If that is being suggested by anyone in this debate, I certainly reject it. I think it is a silly argument for this debate.

I close by saying that there has been an enormous amount of hysteria in this debate and an enormous amount of misinformation.

Mr Berry: And disinformation.

MR HUMPHRIES: I heard you in silence, Mr Berry, and I ask for the same privilege to be extended to me.

Mr Speaker, the fact is that we had this debate in a very similar form in November and in November members contributed to the debate as if we were voting on whether there should be photos or pictures in the booklet that was to be authorised by this action. Again and again, members made comment as if the passing of this legislation meant that inevitably there would be photographs under this legislation. Mr Stanhope said:

Mr Osborne said:

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .