Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I first heard that a private member’s bill from the Senate about RU486 was to be debated, it gave me a lot of concern. I had not thought much about the drug. I did not know a lot about it. I thought that I would have to do a lot of research and, more importantly, a lot of soul-searching. In the stem cell debate I was in a significant minority in the House when the vote was taken.

Whatever we want to say about the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005, it is not a bill about abortion. Let me read from the explanatory memorandum:

A Bill for an Act to repeal Ministerial approval and to leave approval with the Therapeutic Goods Administration over access to RU486, and for related purposes.

That is the first sentence of the explanatory memorandum. The second sentence is this:

The purpose of this bill is to remove responsibility for approval for RU486 from the Minister for Health and Ageing and to provide responsibility for approval of RU486 to the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

With the greatest respect to those who have made a contribution in this place, it is not a referendum about abortion. It is not a bill about being for abortion or against abortion. I am happy to say where I stand on these things. I have always been opposed to abortion. But I am equally opposed to the idea that governments should dictate to women about their reproductive rights. However, I would support any measure that makes it easier for women who need to contemplate having an abortion to avoid having that abortion.

This is not a bill that calls into judgment the Catholicism of the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, just as it does not call into judgment my Catholicism, as flawed as it may be. This is a bill about a process—a process of administering a drug. For all that people have said about the Therapeutic Goods Administration in the adverse, let me say that it has approved up to 50,000 drugs so far. This will be another one. If there is an apprehension that this drug has adverse effects for any women taking the drug, it would be the responsibility of the Therapeutic Goods Administration to fully explore any adverse consequences and make appropriate recommendations or approvals based on that.

It is true that this drug is now available in many countries. I suppose you could say that there is a likelihood that the drug would be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but they still have processes and protocols to go through before making that assessment. I might also say that in that most Catholic of countries, France, this drug has been available for many years.

In his contribution the minister for health said that he was going to bring forth a cabinet proposal to provide further assistance for women who are contemplating abortions and make it easier for them not to have abortions. I welcome that. This is the right path to go down rather than trying to legislate.

I find it somewhat ironic that I have perhaps one of the poorest electorates in New South Wales demographically and yet I am sure that you will agree with me, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, that one of the groups in our society that is most vilified—and vilified by a lot of people—is teenage unmarried mothers. It seems that no opportunity is missed to moralise, lecture and denigrate them. Yet in my electorate I have always been very proud of Plumpton High School, where there has been a special program that encourages young teenage mothers back into school. I in no way wish to denigrate the Catholic school system, but I am not aware of any program in a Catholic school that operates like Plumpton High School. The Anglican Church in Sydney, I am aware—and probably in the rest of New South Wales—is also developing quite a number of schools. Again, I am not aware of any such program.

If we are concerned about the number of abortions in our society, we should not vilify people who choose to have the child. In fact, we should make it easier for them. We should not ostracise them from society or make it even harder for them to succeed. We ought to have programs like the one at Plumpton High School. Having said that, I remind everyone that teenage single mothers are a very small percentage of single mothers.

The other thing I would say to the minister for health is to repeat something that the honourable member for Lowe has said. For a long time the honourable member for Lowe has exhibited, in his own unique way, a tenacious interest in knowing exactly how many abortions are performed each year in Australia. In that regard he has put a number of questions on the Notice Paper. Yet Minister Abbott declines to answer them. The unkindest interpretation of this is that Minister Abbott is happy to use the figure of 100,000 abortions a year, knowing that it is much less than that. Wouldn’t it be helpful to any debate in the parliament—here today, or tomorrow or next year—if members of the parliament and the public at large actually had the accurate figure of the number of abortions being performed in Australia?

I am surprised by the amendment moved by the honourable member for Lindsay. It actually took a little while for the full implications of that amendment to be understood—in an unprecedented way, I suppose. The Speaker was asked a question by the honourable member for McPherson and the honourable member for Mackellar, trying to understand the import of her amendment. Basically, the import of her amendment is that, if the amendment is carried, the whole bill is negated and it will require the introduction of a private member’s bill not yet on the Notice Paperalthough I understand a contingent notice is going to be lodged by the end of the night.

I say to the honourable member for Lindsay that it is perhaps better if one is more transparent in what one is trying to achieve. If, all along, your amendment required a private member’s bill, why not lodge it at the same time that you moved your second reading amendment? There is some suggestion, of course, that the member for Lindsay is acting at the behest of the Minister for Health and Ageing. I am in no way able to comment on whether that is right or wrong, but I do say to the member for Lindsay: be a bit more transparent in the future in the way you use the processes of the House. I should indicate that I will not be voting for that amendment.

The member for Bowman has also submitted an amendment. I must say that I am attracted to the idea of his amendment, particularly its justification that work is being done on drugs that will come on in the next decade or so, which will be very different from the drugs that we know today—in other words, they will not be specifically addressing a psychiatric, psychological or medical problem but will perhaps enhance intellect or wellbeing. We have not seen these drugs to date. I do accept that they probably do need a different type of approval. However, it is also true that legislation oftentimes lags these developments rather than precedes them. Whilst we are a little way from there, and whilst I am attracted to it, I think it is something that we will need to look to in the future rather than acting here in the present. And I do not like RU486 being lumped in with those particular drugs that he has in mind as being available. I will be voting against his amendment.

I want to indicate that I will be supporting this bill. I cannot say that I have had a great crisis of conscience or that I have agonised about it. I repeat: this bill is about a process. It is not a referendum. It is not a plebiscite about abortion. It is about a process. Nothing makes that clearer than the explanatory memorandum. This bill does not call into judgment Tony Abbott’s Catholicism, or anyone else’s Catholicism who is participating in this debate here today in the parliament, or has done so in the Senate, or any member of the public who is contemplating having a view.

I do not join in the surrogate debate on this bill, because it is not what I am being called to mind to bear my conscience about. It is about a process. I have no difficulty with voting on the process. I think it is appropriate that the same process that we have used to assess 50,000 other drugs should be the same process that is used to judge this drug.

I do not see this as an aspect of the sovereignty of the parliament being overruled or my rights as a member being overruled. Like other members in this debate I understand only too well that I will disappoint those who are opposed to my decision to support this bill. And for those who wanted me to support the bill, I probably poorly executed the case and caused them some angst. But, as members of parliament, we need to make decisions. We need to stand up and be accountable for those decisions. I do so. I support the bill and I oppose the amendments.

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