Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As shadow minister for families and community services I have, as part of my brief, responsibility for people with disabilities. I take it as axiomatic that a humane and civilised society should take all reasonable steps to give people with disabilities a full life. People are not less than fully human because they are deaf, blind, short or have cerebral palsy or any other condition. Each life is a gift—a gift from God, many would say—and should be regarded as a blessing. So we should never imply that people might be a burden or have less of a right to exist because caring for them is expensive. But I regret to say that that is just what two submissions to a Senate inquiry appear to do.

I am talking about the inquiry into Senator Barnett’s bid to end Medicare funding for late-term abortions except in cases of foetal death or risk to the life of the mother. Page 11 of the submission from the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance says:

The removal of item 16525 from the Health Insurance (General Medical Services Table) Regulations increases the likelihood of a greater number of persons being born with severe disabilities and high support needs.

The submission goes on:

The financial cost of caring for a severely disabled individual is high not only for the family, but for the greater community. … It is logical to assume that an increase in demand for disability services as a result of the abolishment of item 16525 will place greater demand on what is already an underfunded and overwhelmed sector.

Obviously, there is a lot of pressure on disability services. I accept that. But that does not mean that we should bring any pressure at all to bear on people in difficult situations.

I point out that the submission from the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development says exactly the same thing—indeed, they are two identical submissions—and I make three points. The first point is that the Reproductive Health Alliance should not have implied that disabled babies are too much of a burden on the rest of us. The second point I make is that the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development should not have directly copied that submission. The third point I make is that Senator Claire Moore, who heads the parliamentary group, should not have lodged that submission without the approval of all 41 MPs in that group. This is too important and sensitive a subject for such a submission to have been lodged without obtaining each member’s specific permission.

In fairness to Senator Moore, I suspect that she did not want to suggest that she was recommending abortion for babies with disabilities and that she is a victim of hasty drafting. Still, that is the predicament in which she now is and that is the predicament in which she has placed 41 of her colleagues as a result of this poorly drafted submission. I am sure that very few, if any, of the group’s 41 members would on reflection really want to be associated with the suggestion that disabled babies are a burden; yet, unless the submission is withdrawn or MPs resign from the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, that is precisely what they have done.

I suggest to my 41 colleagues, who, I should say, include some of the parliament’s most senior members on both sides of the Senate and the House, that this submission should not be allowed to stand. The members of the group should consider their position, and I call on them to do so, lest the words that have been put in their mouths cause people with disabilities to feel that they only exist under sufferance. It would be a tragedy if any person with a disability were to feel in any way slighted by a member of this parliament, and I fear that is precisely what has happened because of this poorly drafted—indeed, unconscionably drafted—submission, which should be withdrawn.