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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2788 ..

MS TUCKER: That is only for an adoption. This was in the law in 1994. Was this the adoption law that you were talking about? I am not talking about the current legislation. I am talking about 1994.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Ms Tucker, your remarks will be directed to the chair.

MS TUCKER: Mrs Carnell may be able to offer an explanation. If a cooling-off period existed in the legislation then, I am interested in the fact that it could be waived by the Chief Minister. That is another issue. That is off the track a bit.

I understand Labor have changed their position. That is their right. I would be more concerned about leaving it as it is. We understand that we do not have a proper regulatory environment for people to do this in. As responsible elected parliamentarians, we do not want to encourage people to do this until we have the regulatory environment and we have done the basic work.

MR OSBORNE (5.38): I must admit to finding some of the things Mr Stanhope had to say quite offensive. To be accused of wanting to put your head in the sand because you opposed a piece of legislation on this issue is clearly wrong. Those of us who have had trouble with it have done anything but put our heads in the sand.

The issue that reinforced in my mind that the path I was proposing of waiting for the Law Reform Commission was the right one was the issue of twins. I have to admit I had not given it much thought. I do not think the issue has been discussed with me by my staff in the last couple of months. It may have been discussed between Mr Stanhope and some members of my staff, but it is not an issue that I have given a lot of thought to. It is a classic example of the fact that when you are dealing with this type of legislation little things just come up.

Unfortunately, Mr Stanhope seems to think that we can deal with them today. That is fine, but I think we need to be aware that when you are dealing with this legislation, when you are making little tinkers around the edge, it is going to have a flow-on effect. While ever no comprehensive inquiry is undertaken and no report in is front of us, we will be back again in a couple of months because there has been another hiccup, and we will be back again in six months.

I accept that the legislation will pass today, but I think we are making a grave error. I hope that we are not back in a couple of months fixing up another mess.

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