Page 449 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 February 2020
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Wednesday, 19 February 2020
MADAM SPEAKER (Ms J Burch) took the chair at 10 am, made a formal recognition that the Assembly was meeting on the lands of the traditional custodians, and asked members to stand in silence and pray or reflect on their responsibilities to the people of the Australian Capital Territory.
Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Tissue Donor Acknowledgment) Amendment Bill 2020
Ms Cheyne, pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (10.01): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
Today I introduce the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Tissue Donor Acknowledgment) Amendment Bill 2020. This bill will amend the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act to provide two formal opportunities for recognition that a person was a tissue donor, at the written request of a next of kin. Before I go on I wish to clarify that the term “tissue”, under the Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1978, includes organs and tissue. So, while, for clarity, I will use “organ and tissue donation” and “organ and tissue donor” in this speech, for the purposes of the act, and for anyone reading this bill, “tissue” is technically the encompassing term.
At any one time, there are around 1,400 Australians waitlisted for an organ or tissue transplant. Many more still are not yet waitlisted but would benefit from a transplant. But the decision to donate organs and tissue can be a difficult one. It can be a difficult decision if you are a living donor and it can be a difficult decision on the occasion of someone’s death, when the decision is ultimately for the family and where the circumstances which allow for organ and tissue donation usually mean that the death was sudden and unexpected.
Of course, being registered on the organ and tissue donor register helps inform a family of what their loved one’s desires are, and I absolutely encourage Australians and ACT residents to register. But, ultimately, in each state and territory in Australia the decision remains one for the family in these circumstances, a decision at a time when they are often in shock and only just beginning their grieving process. What it comes down to is that the decision to donate organs or tissue is a decision about the gift of life. Indeed, the decision often provides for gifts—plural—of life, with multiple lives often saved. It is only appropriate, then, that we in this jurisdiction provide opportunities for acknowledgement and recognition that are commensurate with, and reflect, the enormity and significance of the decision, and the enormity and significance of the gift.
In the ACT, there currently exist a number of avenues for acknowledgement and recognition of the decision and gift of organ donation, as well as opportunities for
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