Page 2711 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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law and on that basis alone should be addressed by this Legislative Assembly. The fact that it is in the public interest to prevent people benefiting from the birth of children only adds to the need to pass this legislation.
It is worth noting that this legislation would not prevent a plaintiff from seeking any damages arising from negligence in relation to sterilisation or other specialist medical procedures. Contractual and other damages relating directly to a procedure carried out negligently will still be available to plaintiffs. It would, however, ensure that it is impossible, and rightly so, to be financially compensated for the birth of a healthy child. People will be unable to claim as damages the cost of raising a healthy child.
This is a position that I believe clearly reflects the views of the ACT community and the former longstanding legal precedent, which was a sound one. It should be enshrined in ACT legislation. I do not believe that it is possible to go out and place a monetary value on human life. This position that I am advocating, and which my colleague Mrs Dunne has put forward, fits with the law prior to the decision in Cattanach v Melchior. It fits with similar legislation in other jurisdictions, both within Australia and within countries that observe the Westminster parliamentary traditions, and fits with what we believe is the position of the ACT community and the public at large. I urge members to support this amendment bill.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (4.14): I commend Mrs Dunne for bringing this legislation forward. The Civil Law (Wrongs) Amendment Bill 2005 is an important piece of legislation. It is legislation that has been recognised in other jurisdictions in Australia, with very good reason.
This is a principle that legislatures actually need to protect. I will refer first to some of what Mr Corbell said. There was just the one line that struck me about what he was saying, and it undermined his argument about not seeing children as damages or as loss when he said that, under Mrs Dunne’s legislation, medical practitioners would not be held accountable for damages flowing from their negligence. That proposition only stands if you see children as damage, if you see children as loss. That is where we are drawing the line. We are drawing the line against the concept that children can be put down to a commodity or to a monetary value. We see that as unacceptable. Even if the government does not, we see it as unacceptable, and that is where Mr Corbell’s argument fell down. He said that people would be prevented from claiming for damages. It is only the case if you see the birth of a healthy child as damage or loss, and that is what Mr Corbell said.
I read with interest Mr Stanhope saying in the Canberra Times today that they are not saying that children are a damage or a loss. Of course, that is exactly what they are arguing. They are arguing against legislation which prevents these kinds of claims being made. It is a very simple proposition, it is a very short piece of legislation and it does very limited things. It does not do a lot of what Mr Corbell said; it does very limited things—very important things. We are standing here on a principle, and the principle is this: children are not loss. We are not going to define them as an economic loss, and they cannot simply be broken down in terms of their economic value or otherwise to their parents. We are standing on that principle.
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