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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2784 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I just think that this needs to be looked at. We need to understand exactly what this means in the long run. You might have noticed that one of the UK authority's functions that I read out was the collection of comprehensive data and the long-term impacts of it, and I believe that that is absolutely essential if we are to be more informed as a community and as parliaments around the world in making future decisions about these sorts of questions. And that information needs to be collected independently. I know that people will argue that the provider currently is collecting information, but in that regard we should look at one of the articles in the Canberra Times of 1996, which I will table later because I think it would be of interest to anyone who in the future wanted to look at this debate as a historian or whatever.

There was a very interesting difference between the birth mother's reporting of the birth compared to what the doctor said, and I believe that we need to be able to see a really independent and confidential vehicle for collection of information because the pressures would be greater on people in altruistic arrangements to not actually be honest in their feelings because clearly they do not want to hurt the people they have been working with. I understand and sympathise with that, but it is much more likely that you would get an honest response, or a clear response, if it was not a good experience.

I am not saying that the current ones have not been good at all. What I am saying is that if it was not a good experience someone who is in a commercial relationship would be more likely to say, "This didn't work for me for the following reasons." But for someone who was in a loving relationship-whatever that means; it is very complicated to define love-to in some way express dissatisfaction, it is clearly a human dilemma for that person which has to be respected and understood.

So for that reason I think, for the long-term benefit of the communities and for people who want to make decisions and make these sorts of arrangements work better-and we are just starting here; this is really the beginning of many such issues we are going to have to deal with-we need to have a vehicle for collection of confidential and rigorous information so that we can make those decisions, and that would not involve having to identify anybody or impact on people's individual family and emotional situations.

For those reasons I believe that it would be much better if we just left the legislation as it is, and that would hopefully mean that the government moved very quickly to do what it should have done quite some time ago, which is to resource the Law Reform Commission better, do the work, get in the other information that is available and work on this. It is unfortunate that the government has been so lax in doing this, because there are families in the ACT who have become, in a way, in the middle of this. They have a personal situation they want addressed, and now the government is using that personal situation to try to force this parliament to take an action which I do not think is responsible.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (5.23): I will speak again just briefly to the issue following Ms Tucker's address on the matter. I do not wish to go over old ground, but I think Ms Tucker fundamentally misses the point of what the Labor Party is seeking to achieve here and in fact what the Chief Minister is proposing.

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