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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2768 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

which we now believe need to be fully thrashed out, argued and legislated for to the extent that they can be.

The Labor Party's position is one of acknowledgment that the law did change in the ACT a number of years ago, which allowed for non-commercial surrogacy in the ACT. Certain people have taken advantage of that law, as they were quite entitled to do, and as a result of that a number of children have been born. We are now being asked to deal with those circumstances through a further addition or amendment to the law. We are dealing with that here today.

We have accepted that it is appropriate that we deal with this one other issue in relation to which each of us has received representations, namely, the parentage of children who have been born as a result of surrogacy arrangements. In looking at that issue, however, and in again legislating today we do find that we have been confronted-each of us-as we have looked at this legislation, looked at these issues and looked at these proposals by a range of other issues and questions that we do not believe have been appropriately debated, considered or resolved in the ACT.

The Labor Party, in its consideration of the issue, resolved that it would be appropriate for the inquiry which the Attorney instituted 20 months ago to proceed now, that we should no longer legislate in this piecemeal fashion and that we should have an exhaustive inquiry. The mechanism is there. The Chief Minister now assures me that that inquiry will be adequately resourced to allow the work to continue. I have no doubt that that will now happen.

The chairman of the commission tells me that it will take him at least a year, and I want him to do a thorough job, to appropriately conclude that inquiry. We do need then to allow time for the government or the Assembly to consider and respond to that report. But there is an issue that we can deal with today, namely, the issue of parentage.

As I said, in my consideration of the issue I came across a couple of other matters which did cause me some immediate disquiet and which I felt could be legislated on today, subject to the agreement of the Assembly. One of the issues that occurred to me was: what if there were a multiple birth as a result of a surrogacy arrangement and what if it were the desire of either the biological parents or the surrogate parents to divide those children, so that there would be a parentage order sought in relation to one of a set of twins but not the other? Perhaps the biological parents only sought a son, but twins were born and one was a girl. Perhaps one of the children born to a multiple arrangement was deformed.

I took the view, and I take the view, that it would not be appropriate to pick and choose, that if there were a multiple birth the parentage order, when sought, would be in relation to all of the children. That is what this amendment does. It says that if there is a surrogacy arrangement and there are twins or triplets and a parentage order is sought by the biological parents, pursuant to the Chief Minister's proposals, then the parentage order will be sought in respect of all of the children of the birth. That is what this proposal is about.

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