Hague Kevin: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hague Kevin: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 On the occasion of the second reading of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill one of the other bills that we were debating in the Chamber was the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill. I raise the issue for a particular reason. The context of our debate on the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill was that the original Motor Vehicle Sales Act had been written with a review clause in it so the bill that we were debating on the night of the second reading of this bill was one that had arisen out of a review of the Act that had been mandated by the Act itself. The field of motor vehicle sales is obviously a complex and fast-moving one with a whole series of cutting-edge scientific and no doubt commercial and ethical issues so of course it was an area that required a section that provided for a review to be undertaken. It was no surprise that when that review of that Act occurred it threw up some issues with regard to the operation of the Act that required amendment. 
In the case of human-assisted reproduction it is at least arguable I think that this field is at least as fast-moving and complex as motor vehicle sales. It could even be that it has some scientific and ethical issues that are trickier to handle than the area of motor vehicle sales yet the existing Act was written without a review clause. In the second reading debate on this bill I devoted some time to the issue of a review and I said I would come back to it in the third reading debate. 
Members of the House will have noted that the very first version of this bill which we considered in our first reading was quite a simple bill. It was just a few clauses long with quite straightforward language. Then when it came back to the House from the Health Committee the bill was no longer a simple straightforward one. The “track changes” version of the bill had lots and lots of additions deletions and new framing and the reason for that was that what had appeared to be a simple issue turned out to be quite a lot more complex than that. The Green Party argues that the same principle applies to other aspects of the in vitro fertilisation area of human endeavour so we were disappointed to learn during the select committee process that the original Act had not provided for review as an automatic process as part of its implementation as the Motor Vehicle Sales Act had done. Then we were disappointed that the Minister in introducing this amendment bill had not taken the opportunity to incorporate a review process because that could easily have been done. Now we are in the process assuming that this bill passes tonight of urging the Minister to conduct a review of the operation of the Act and its fitness for purpose. 
As an example of some of the issues that have arisen since this Act was passed in 2004 I draw the House’s attention to a report of the Law Commission that was published in March 2006 and called  
New Issues in Legal Parenthood 
. The Law Commission made 29 recommendations. At least 12 of them relate directly to the issues that are canvassed in this Act. They could have been dealt with in a review and could have been dealt with in this bill but they were not. For example the Law Commission made recommendations about agreements between donors and parents. It made recommendations about counselling and education. It made recommendations about information regarding parentage and parenthood—for example what should appear on birth certificates what should appear in information registers and the kind of access to information that people should have. The Law Commission made a large number of recommendations—some 29 of them. 
I have been contacted since this bill was introduced to the House by a man who is a sperm donor. He has donated sperm for some years and is the biological father of I think four children in multiple families. His concern was that there is no requirement to record on birth certificates the involvement of a third biological parent. He was asking about some of the issues that might arise from that because the information that he had—and I have no reason to doubt this—is that only a minority of parents actually tell their offspring about the involvement of a third biological parent about the involvement of a sperm donor. So he is saying he has biological children out there who do not necessarily know that he is their biological father and who have half-siblings whom they also do not know about. He is asking what the situation would be if those individuals formed a relationship and whether they should have the right to know about their background. 
These were the kinds of issues that the Law Commission raised in its 2006 report which occurred since Parliament passed the Act in 2004. These are the kinds of issues that could be addressed in the process of a review. The Law Commission has raised some pretty serious issues and some pretty serious issues have also been raised from other quarters. My view is that this House has a responsibility to ensure that there is an appropriate forum for the consideration of those kinds of issues. So far one has not been created. We urge that the Minister now takes the opportunity to institute a review of the operation of the Act to consider the recommendations of the Law Commission to consider all of the other issues that have arisen subsequently and to ensure that this Act is fit for purpose. 
We are confident now that this bill does in fact correct one of the aspects of the original Act that required clarification. Doing that turned out to be more complicated than we had thought it would be. My suggestion to this House is that that may well prove to be the case for other aspects of the Act also. We urge that there be a review.