Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Boswell, I have the transcript of that discussion in the Senate committee hearing as well. If you go to the first page, you will see that you ask this question:

Is the baby bonus payable following a post 20-week elective abortion?

The response was:

… there is a payment made for stillbirths that are certified by a medical practitioner and there is a process within the baby bonus system for stillbirths that are certified by a medical practitioner.

You say:

There is a division between stillbirths and abortions?

The response was:

The only provision for payment of baby bonus is for stillbirths that are certified by a medical practitioner.

I want to take you to an outcome of an appeal by the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, which was heard in April 2007. The tribunal found:

Whilst the narrow definition is the delivery of a dead child, a stillborn child is usually considered to be progressing towards a live delivery until some adverse event occurs that ends the child’s life. Such an event may include antenatal haemorrhage, placental insufficiency or foetal abnormality et cetera and all of these events are unintended events. In contrast, an elective termination in which there is no life-threatening abnormality or risk to the mother’s health is very much intentional and does not fit the accepted meaning of a stillborn death.

Therefore, an intended termination after 20 weeks does not fit the definition of a stillborn death and therefore would not be seen to be eligible for a parental leave payment.