George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

With respect, it was not an analogy. I was merely pointing out that there are ways other than through birth that a parent-child relationship can come into existence. The other ways are by legal rules, of which the most commonly recognised is by adoption, which is not this case. But in the case of the other person in a relationship which has taken advantage of an artificial conception procedure, then the other person in the relationship is, by operation of the law—because it is obviously not through a biological relationship—put in a relationship with the child. Hence, although you, with respect, Senator Pratt, and others have cavilled at the word ‘deem’, that is in fact merely a commonplace, unremarkable way in which a legal relationship is created by statute because a biological relationship does not exist.