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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2731 ..

MR STANHOPE: No, it did not initially. Mr Connolly did that but then Mrs Carnell moved amendments that removed the offence. Her amendment was supported, albeit reluctantly-

Mr Humphries: It is wrong.

MR STANHOPE: It is not; well, unless I-

Mr Humphries: He discouraged commercial surrogacy, but allowed non-commercial surrogacy.

MR STANHOPE: I will read it again for the record in case I misread it. What I said-and I believe it to be appropriate unless I misread it-was that Mr Connolly's 1994 act outlawed commercial surrogacy and discouraged non-commercial surrogacy to the point that it was not possible. This was done by making it an offence for medical professionals to facilitate pregnancy in surrogacy cases.

However, Mrs Carnell moved amendments that removed the offence. Her amendment was supported, albeit reluctantly, by the ALP on the basis that it is wrong in principle to create an offence of aiding and abetting non-commercial surrogacy when non-commercial surrogacy itself is not a criminal offence.

The problems raised in the debate in 1996 have not, however, been resolved. Mrs Carnell's current proposal is in conflict with a 1991 resolution of the Australian health and social welfare ministers to ban surrogacy in any form. Some recommendations of the Community Law Reform Committee, made in 1996, have not been adopted.

The Chief Minister's proposal raises, but does not resolve, the question of the tension between balancing the needs of the parents and the rights of the child. And the difficulty in reconciling these rights was noted in an article in the British Medical Journal as recently as April 2000. That journal reported on a conference which calls for more research on how to honour the commitment made by the British legislation to take into account the welfare of the child. Almost all the research to date has focused on the needs and dilemmas of the parents.

Even in non-commercial surrogacy there is potential for financial, emotional and psychological exploitation of all those involved.

Directed adoption is available only between close relatives. However, I think it is to be noted that the adoption division of the New South Wales Supreme Court recently made a decision permitting genetic parents to adopt the child from the surrogate parents. The court commented that it seems appropriate that special adoption rules should apply in such cases. There is no reason to suspect that the ACT court would make a different decision, and that option is open to genetic parents.

Mr Speaker, the community is obviously divided and undecided about the issues surrounding the whole area of artificial reproductive technology. What is of concern to me and the Labor Party is not the arrangements that people make to have babies, but the

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