BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES REGISTRATION (REGISTRATION OF DEATHS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 10 April 2008. Page 2827.)

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:15): I just want to make a very brief contribution, and I commend the member for Davenport for introducing this bill. He has focused in this bill on a particular aspect involving de facto relationships, but in terms of this whole process of registration of births, deaths and marriages, which is one of the issues that came up through our select committee looking at cemeteries, there is no centralised record-keeping relating to where people are buried or where cremated remains are kept, etc. That makes it very difficult over time for relatives to find out where loved ones have been buried or where there are cremated remains with perhaps a rose bush growing at that location, and it is even more difficult obviously if the remains are scattered, which for environmental reasons we do not encourage now.

It would be very simple if, at the time of death, there were a requirement that those details—the place of burial, the location of cremated remains and no doubt in time natural burial ground location—be recorded centrally by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

The other issue is a very complicated one, and I have interacted with the Attorney on this: the question of mothers who have a baby that does not go to full term. It is a complicated issue because in some cases you have babies that go full term and are stillborn, but in other cases women have babies that do not go to full term and the termination is not necessarily something that they wanted or wished for, but the medical prognosis was not good.

That is another issue that needs to be dealt with in terms of recording that information, and some of these people, in order to get closure, look for some sort of record or certificate to cover the situation where a baby did not go full term and died, and that information can be replicated by way of a certificate. It is a complicated issue. I know the Attorney is sympathetic to it, but it is another matter that could be dealt with under this bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.