Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

yet those people on the other side of this House have said these bills are about making homebirthing illegal. Unlike the Howard government, we have not removed that professional indemnity that was in place.

I have to refer back, for the member who is going to speak following me, the member for Groom, to the fact that midwives not having medical indemnity insurance has been the case since 1 July 2001. What government was in power then? The Howard government. A large number of members on the other side of this House were members of the Howard government and I presume they supported that move, and now they sanctimoniously stand up in this parliament and argue that choice is being taken away by this legislation when in actual fact, through the hard work and the strong negotiating skills of the minister, we are in a situation where for the next two years there will be medical indemnity insurance. An agreement was reached on Friday and ongoing discussions will take place from there.

I would really like to congratulate the minister. This is groundbreaking legislation. This is legislation that does support choice for women. It is legislation that is not about telling women what they have to do but rather about providing choice. It is about recognising both nurse practitioners and midwives, and acknowledging that they have a significant contribution to make to our health system. I commend the bills to the House.

See this speech in context