Page 2718 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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The birth of a healthy child is simply not reasonable grounds to seek damages. Such a policy is morally bankrupt and it is extremely offensive to people everywhere, not least the citizens of the ACT. The behaviour that we have seen demonstrated lately in relation to treating kids as commodities is an attack on the value of family and on the values that underpin family. Therefore, if you extend that, it is an attack on the foundations of our own society.
Our own society is based on the building blocks of family and the love with which we cherish our kids, who are the future of our society. We must uphold those values, and that is why Mrs Dunne is proposing this legislation today: so that we can continue to defend those fundamentals, which are the basis of a healthy society and a society with a future. Anything less is not a society with a future.
The potential for abuse due to a lack of legislation is never ending. What next—failed condoms? Will this be the basis of seeking damages? Mr Speaker, legislation is required to bring to a halt the potential for such abuse. Why leave the courts in limbo about this issue? Clearly this is a flagrant matter of social policy which is best determined in the legislature rather than the judiciary. Why leave it to the courts? Why not support this legislation? Why not stand here shoulder to shoulder as MLAs and make the decisions on behalf of society, on behalf of our community?
We have a leadership role and a moral responsibility to take a stance on this matter. We, as MLAs, must provide strong guidance to our courts on a range of matters, not simply this matter. After all, unlike the courts, we represent the community’s needs and we represent community standards. That is why I commend Mrs Dunne for having stood up here today to present this legislation. She is performing a leadership role as an MLA elected by her community. We are not leaving it to the courts to make these sorts of judgements.
Mr Speaker, the fact that a purported wrongful birth took place in the ACT is apparently reason enough to seek damages. Why do we here today propose elevating the ACT to a jurisdiction which sees the birth of children as simply being treated as losses or damages and commodities for trading? Why do we want to see the ACT elevated to that level? Well, that is what you are doing when you do not support this bill. You are leaving it to the courts for opportunistic legal pursuits to be undertaken.
New South Wales as well as South Australia have made adequate provisions in their respective statutes to protect against this sort of behaviour. In New South Wales such provisions are contained in section 71 of the New South Wales Civil Liability Act 2002, and in South Australia they are contained in section 67 of the Civil Liability Act 1936—1936. Both are identical in effect to what Mrs Dunne and what the opposition are proposing here today. These states have set a reasonable standard, and there is no excuse for why the ACT should not follow suit, except, of course, if your are ACT Labor, which is into social engineering perhaps.
Such cases cannot be ruled upon within the modest parameters of medical negligence. Seeking damages in cases of wrongful births will unfairly and arbitrarily consider the worth of a life based upon the manner in which it was conceived. Mr Corbell and Mr Stanhope do see the position of our children as being goods which can be regarded
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