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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (13 March) . . Page.. 1068 ..
Amendment negatived.
MR STANHOPE
(Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (5.17): Mr Speaker, all of the amendments remaining to be moved are identical. I have no desire to engage in a jack-in-the-box contest with Ms Dundas. I am happy to move amendment No 5 circulated in my name and leave all other amendments to Ms Dundas to move.For the information of members, in every other amendment-there are half a dozen or more-Ms Dundas and I are responding to the same representations by the same constituents and, magically, have come up with exactly the same wording for amendments, essentially relating to intersex people and search powers. I will move my amendment in relation to the definition of transgender persons.
I move amendment No 5 circulated [see schedule 3 at page 1091].
Ms Dundas has exactly the same amendment, but this amendment substitute a new definition of transgender person. As I indicated on Tuesday, the government received representations about the definition of transgender person and this new definition will address some of the concerns that have been raised.
The new definition differs from the original definition in two respects. Firstly, the definition uses the phrase "a different sex"rather than "the opposite sex"so that it does not reinforce the binary notion of gender by presuming that there are only two sexes. This is also consistent with the definition of domestic partnership. Secondly, the new definition does not include intersex people within the definition of transgender person.
I commend the amendment to the Assembly. I won't rise to speak to the subsequent amendments, unless I feel moved by a moment. I will leave all my other amendments which are mirrored by Ms Dundas's amendments for Ms Dundas to move.
MS DUNDAS
(5.20): I am happy to support this amendment. As the Attorney-General has indicated, it is identical to an amendment that I would have moved. I am glad that we have been able to work to bring about better definitions for this piece of legislation so that we do recognise what needed to be fixed in the original bill.This amendment and the next few amendments deal with the issue of inserting separate definitions of transgender and intersex people into the Legislation Act. All the references to transgender and intersex people that this bill deals with are in relation to body searches conducted by the authorities; in particular, the need for transgender and intersex people to be able to elect the sex of the person conducting a body search.
There are further amendments that clarify that, but this amendment goes to the issue of how we define transgender and intersex people. Transgender and intersex people met the government's original proposal with some concern as the definition lumped them together as a single group. In addition, the original definition went back to the old idea of binary gender and refused to recognise that many transgender people do not readily identify as either male or female.
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