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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2734 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The amendments that I will be proposing to the bill, and to which our approval of the passage of this bill is subject, are as follows.

It is to apply only to children conceived before 30 June 2002. I had proposed that it apply only to children born before 30 June 2002 but, following discussions with the Chief Minister today, the Labor Party is prepared to accept it applying only to children conceived before 30 June 2002.

We propose that siblings resulting from a multiple birth as a result of a surrogacy arrangement not be able to be separated as a result of a parentage order.

And we propose that there needs to be an assurance that the counselling service used by the birth and substitute parents contemplating a surrogacy arrangement is truly independent of the doctor or clinic performing the procedures.

Mr Rugendyke has also this morning circulated amendments that he proposes to Mrs Carnell's bill. There is one aspect in Mr Rugendyke's amendments that has caused us to seek a further amendment, and I therefore foreshadow an amendment to Mr Rugendyke's proposed amendments to reinsert in the legislation a requirement that the substitute parents in a surrogacy arrangement be resident in the ACT. I am concerned that, as a result of the removal of the requirement that the substitute parents be resident in the ACT, Canberra will become the de facto centre for surrogacy arrangements for the whole of Australia.

Mr Speaker, as I said at the outset, the Labor Party is happy to support Mrs Carnell's bill today, despite the reservations that we have about the process that has been pursued from the outset in relation to the development of surrogacy legislation and arrangements in Canberra. Our support is conditional on the amendments I have foreshadowed. Despite our concerns, we wish to bring some relief to existing genetic and birth parents and we are concerned that the best interests of the children that have been born here in the ACT are reflected through this legislation.

As I said, the Chief Minister has undertaken to address the concerns I have raised with her, by ensuring that the ACT Law Reform Committee is given the resources necessary to complete its work, and my amendments also address those concerns, particularly to the extent that we want a complete review of the legislation. Following the work of the Law Reform Committee into assisted or artificial reproductive technologies in the ACT, we would like to see a consolidated and reconstituted legislative approach to the whole issue, following on also from a detailed community debate and consultation on all issues in relation to surrogacy. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour this day.

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