Page 702 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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Mr Humphries mentioned the word "compromise" in his introductory words. That is the key to this whole thing. I tend to have a far more positive and optimistic attitude and outlook to the implementation of this Bill than Mr Humphries seems to have. The position of the committee members, in my view, very fairly reflects the heartache that members of the community had to go through to reach compromise. This report is the result of compromise by the members of the committee. All of us went into the committee with very strong views on the main issues that we were there to debate. The only reason we came up with a report agreed to by five people was that we put ourselves very firmly through the compromise routine, as did the community to get the Bill in place in the first instance. We need to recognise that and use that as a way of understanding and accepting that this Bill will work for those who wish to have it in the community now.
Mr Humphries referred to the free flow of information that will result from this Bill. I do not deny that that is a source of some consternation for some people, but that was not one of the major issues of concern that our inquiry brought to us. The amendments to clause 56 and clause 17 that we referred to earlier and a couple of the other more minor ones were the centre of debate - particularly clause 56. Vetoes on contact and on information did not come up at all - and I stand to be corrected by committee members - in the hearings or in the submissions to a point where we needed to debate the matter and come to some conclusion or recommendation. The matter was referred to but it was not an issue that we needed to make a recommendation on. If it is an issue of great importance I believe that it should have been brought before us and we should have been forced to look at it more.
Mr Humphries: Did the adoption privacy protection group not raise that?
MS ELLIS: They may have in their submission, Mr Humphries, but not to a point where the committee had to sit down and make hard decisions on it. It did not become a debating point for us.
I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the Government's response, as I am sure the adoption community do. Most of them are in the gallery tonight. I think tomorrow we can expect the Bill and the amendments to go through, and I very much look forward to that. I want to repeat what I said earlier. I am in no position, nor do I wish to be, to make any secret of how I felt about this particular referral. However, given the committee's role and my role as chair of the committee, a role which I take very seriously, we launched into the task and did it to the best of our ability. I think we have reached a very good outcome. Again I take the opportunity to commend the report to the Assembly and to thank the Government for its response.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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