Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night in the other place in the adjournment debate and today in the discussion on the disallowance of the removal of item 16525 in the Health Insurance (General Medical Services Table) Regulations 2007 particular comments were made about the role of the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development. I was going to speak this evening about the group on another issue, but I thought I would take the opportunity to clarify the position and to ensure that there is no uncertainty about the group’s position.

As you may know the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development was formed in 1995 to support and promote the program of action from the International Conference on Population and Development that was held in 1994. The PGPD—as I will refer to the group from now on; it is a lot easier—is an all-party group, made up of parliamentarians from federal, state and territory parliaments who work collegiately and across party lines to support the empowerment of women and girls through a commitment to gender equality and the advancement of women, as set out in the ICPD program of action.

We have a number of objectives and we have also a list of ways in which we pursue these objectives. All these are clearly set out on our website. There are four key objectives—I will not go through all of them—but we must engage members of the Australian federal and state parliaments in supporting women’s human rights, in particular, and quite deliberately, their sexual and reproductive rights and empowerment in the Asia-Pacific region.

In pursuing these objectives and identifying ourselves the PGPD undertakes a range of activities—and I will run through these, because it gives some idea of how this group operates. We use parliamentary processes to promote issues of population and development, including issuing questions on notice, taking part in debates, participating in budget estimates and other places in this parliament. We engage individually and collectively in public and private discussions and debates on population and development, and we participate in national conferences as well as direct person-to-person advocacy with national and international parliamentarians.

Since the commencement of this group in 1995 our secretariat has been handled by the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance, a separate body, but one which works towards the same goals. That has been the arrangement since 1995.

Through our meetings of the PGPD we discuss issues that come before the parliament as well as our international responsibilities. The motion that came before the parliament on the removal of item 16525 was discussed at a number of our PGPD meetings. When the time came to make a decision about whether we should make a submission there was no time to have a meeting that included the people who attend every meeting of the parliament here.

As current chair of the group, I made the decision that we should submit together with the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance, which does our secretariat work and which prepared the submission. My error—and only mine—was in not saying that this was a joint submission and submitting it separately without a covering sheet. During the inquiry I explained this to the committee and my understanding is that, whilst they may not have been happy with this, they understood the process.

On 28 October I received an email from the Australian Christian Lobby, which set out some concerns about the content of the submission. There was also a concern that there had been a cut and paste—some kind of stealing of the submission. I felt it was important that I respond. I intend to share with senators the response I gave to the Australian Christian Lobby on that day.

Thank you for your email. The PGPD submission clearly states that people with disabilities can live full, productive and inclusive lives, and we argue that there should be additional resources and services. Our position reinforces the rights of women to have full information about their pregnancy and support to make the personal decision about their pregnancy. As medical science has developed and more medical tests are available to determine the health of mother and child it is important that the woman has full support in making the decision about the future of her pregnancy. We have seen in some submissions to the inquiry that some of these tests are in the second trimester and that the timing of decisions can mean that actions to terminate the pregnancy would require a later term abortion. This Medicare item, 16525, covers that situation and any restriction of access could have impact on the cost to the Medicare system of the access to abortion services. Our submission has attempted to identify other costs to our health system. There is no intent to recommend action or to make judgement about the motivation of women and families facing this difficult decision. We support the right to make the decision with full information, as well as the critical need for effective support and resources for families who choose to raise their child with disabilities.

Then I went on to explain that we were a parliamentary group and that the secretariat is the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance. I am deeply concerned that people had some worries about the wording of the submission, and I accept that this has caused problems.

In fact, during our hearing on record, the person who was representing the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance, Ms Kelsey Powell, was questioned at length about the motivation and processes of the submission, which was raised today in discussion. Ms Powell responded to the questions about whether there was any process that was trying to give costing and causing people to feel as though we were putting costing on human life and devaluing the lives of people with disabilities. Ms Powell said:

I think it was put there as something that we felt we needed to raise because the issue of this item number was mentioned as being a cost in the health budget and I guess we would say that that is a relatively small cost because there are a relatively small number of claims made under this item. I think it is something that we have to consider. While some people might believe there is no reason to terminate a pregnancy no matter how severe the abnormality, there is testing available for women. It is routine as part of antenatal care and, although abortion is not an automatic outcome and it is usually not an outcome of a diagnosis, it is a reality. No matter what decision the woman or the family make, we need to be able to support that decision, so we are putting out that if a child is born with a severe abnormality there is a cost to that family, and the community needs to recognise that and resources need to be available to support that cost.

Ms Powell was questioned at length during her evidence. It is all there on the public record. One of the issues is that the evidence and the submissions are kept separately. You would know, Mr President, that people do not always go through and read all the information that is before them.

On that basis, I wish to make a clear apology that concerns have been raised about words in the initial submission which could cause any offence. I wish to put on record the absolute support of the PGPD and the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance for the dignity of all life, in particular in this discussion the dignity of the lives of people who have disability. It was never an intent to cost that process in any way; rather, in the emotion of the discussion, people were so active in putting forward arguments about the issue that they could well have been worded better. We will be submitting a statement to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration saying that this may well be able to be printed, as often happens with correspondence when people write to committees. I hope that the members of the parliamentary group will be able to get all the information. With the CEO, Ms Jane Singleton, we are putting a full packet of information out to all the members.

In certainty, whilst people have an absolute choice whether they wish to be part of this group or not, it would be a very sad result if people attributed motivations or processes to our group which are just not true. People will be able to see our history of issues in which we have been involved and also the absolute support we have given to protecting the lives, dignity and choice of women and children across this world, not just in our own country. I am more than able to answer any questions about this issue that people may provide to us, but I am very keen that there be no confusion about the position that our group has on the dignity of all life.