Page 401 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
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The current position in Queensland—
which is the position which the Liberal party wishes to impose in the ACT—
has been complicated by recently proclaimed law on child destruction ... This section is directed at the situation in which a person harms a pregnant woman and, as a result, the foetus is killed. It is clear law in other jurisdictions (and has been so for centuries)—
that is, all other Australian jurisdictions and jurisdictions like the UK and other commonwealth countries—
that a homicide charge—
in other words, a charge involving death, whether it be murder, manslaughter, et cetera—
in relation to the foetus can be brought only if the child is born alive and subsequently dies from its injuries.
There is then reference to a whole raft of case law to that effect. The report continues:
The Queensland amendment seeks to overturn that law. The section as enacted applies to all foetuses, at any stage of development.
In other words, from conception. The Queensland law, the law which the Liberal Party proposes to introduce into the ACT and has tried three times now and will continue to attempt to pass through this place, applies to all foetuses at any stage of development. The Model Criminal Code Officers Committee of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General then conclude:
It is manifestly inconsistent with pre-existing Queensland Abortion Law.
That is the point I have been making all day. That is the point that I have made and that members of the government have made on the previous occasions that this matter has been debated. The view of that group of public servants that constitute the Model Criminal Code Officers Committee of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General—and these are officers from every jurisdiction in Australia, including the commonwealth–is that this law is manifestly inconsistent with existing abortion laws. And it quite obviously is. They state that it is simply not possible to predict what legal effect these provisions will have. That is the view of the most expert criminal law policy group in Australia.
Mr Pratt can stand up and say that I am seeking to confuse the issue, but the opposition’s motivation and the Liberal Party’s position on this, that this has got nothing to do with abortion, is not accepted by the most learned criminal law policy group within Australia, which has on it representatives from the commonwealth and every state and territory in Australia. It reports to the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. Their view is that what you have sought to do today is manifestly inconsistent; in other words, it cannot stand side by side with laws on abortion. They go on to say that there is no way of knowing what the legal implications of that law are. That is not my view. That is at
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