Territory Stories

Debates Day 2 - Wednesday 23 November 1994

Details:

Title

Debates Day 2 - Wednesday 23 November 1994

Other title

Parliamentary Record 6

Collection

Debates for 7th Assembly 1994 - 1997; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 7th Assembly 1994 - 1997

Date

1994-11-23

Notes

Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

Language

English

Subject

Debates

Publisher name

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

Place of publication

Darwin

File type

application/pdf

Use

Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright owner

Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/281606

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/414128

Page content

DEBATES - Wednesday 23 November 1994 conceived naturally. In essence, the program is about using medical science to the limit in order to enhance the natural biological process o f procreation involving a man and a woman. These are medical criteria, but they will apply only to a man and a woman who are either married to each other, living together in a stable relationship or, if they are Aboriginals, living in a man/woman relationship recognised as a traditional marriage by the Aboriginal community or group to which they belong. Recently, the provision o f artificial fertilisation services in the Territory has been taken over by a private company, Repromed. The company operates independently o f government but has agreed to retain the eligibility criteria that I have described. It was agreed that the service was not to be made available to the public generally, but only to a specific client group. For this reason, the provision o f these services must be exempted from the operation o f the Anti-Discrimination Act. The specific purpose o f this bill is to enable settled eligibility criteria for artificial fertilisation services to be applied, as they are in at least 3 o f the states, without fear o f breaching anti-discrimination legislation. I advise that I will be seeking leave for urgency for this bill to pass through all stages at these sittings so that the loophole that currently exists may be closed. This will avoid any misunderstanding or influx o f applications from interstate as well as in the Territory .. The bill provides that any complaint made to the Office o f the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner prior to introduction o f this bill should not be affected in any way. I commend the bill to honourable members. Debate adjourned. ED U CA TIO N A M EN D M EN T A CT 1994 A M EN D M EN T BILL (Serial 50) Bill presented and read a first time. M r FIN C H (E ducation and T rain ing): Mr Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time. This bill seeks to amend the Education Amendment Act which allows the granting of ultimate maximum autonomy to TAFE colleges and makes a number o f miscellaneous amendments to the principal act. The Education Amendment Act commenced on 1 July 1994. Section 4(c) o f the amendment act omitted the previous definition o f government school and defined a government school as a school declared to be a government school by notice in the Gazette under subsection 4(2) o f the act. Unfortunately, as a result o f an administrative oversight, schools have not been declared by notice in the Gazette and therefore amending legislation is required to validate actions pursuant to the act in the period from 1 July 1994. Mr Speaker, I propose to seek leave for the bill to be debated and passed through all stages at these sittings. Debate adjourned.