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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-25 Daily Xml
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Bills

Health Care (Health Access Zones) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (10:31): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Health Care Act 2008. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (10:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It gives me a great sense of fulfilment to be able to introduce this bill, for it to be my first piece of legislation to introduce into parliament in my name. This bill is designed to support women's reproductive health choices by ensuring that all women can access health services that provide abortion without fear, intimidation, harassment or obstruction. The Hon. Ms Franks and I have worked together to prepare and co-sponsor this reform with the support of many other members in this place.

The bill before you, Mr Speaker, acknowledges that women have a legal right to access reproductive services without fear, intimidation or harassment. Importantly as well—I am a healthcare professional myself—staff who work where reproductive support services are undertaken have a right to enter and leave their workplace safely every day without being obstructed, interfered with, hindered, harassed or photographed.

An important distinction between this bill and the previous bill that has already been tabled is that it gives us as parliamentarians the opportunity for these protections for women and staff to pass this parliament without being impeded by any other contentious issues that might arise when we are seeking to amend the Criminal Law Consolidation Act. Members of this parliament and our community have—and rightly so—deeply held views about abortion. It is their right that they are free to express their views.

This bill does not seek to prevent anybody from holding or expressing their views. It provides, however, a safe place for women, a safe place to seek advice and medical treatment if they so wish. In every jurisdiction in our country, Australia, with the exception of WA, these reforms have already been implemented, and WA is also now preparing legislation to address this.

The bill allows the Minister for Health to declare a specified premises, which will have a zone of 150  metres around it as a protest-free zone, allowing for a safe pathway to access the premises. It does not stop people from protesting; it just provides a legal space of access. We currently do this in the election process. This should not be any different.

The reason I am introducing the bill to parliament today is that we already have a clear mandated legal position under the right circumstances, determined by medical practitioners, for abortion services. They are legal health services. Expressing deeply held views does not carry with it a right to subject others to fear and intimidation. It is unreasonable for any groups to target women at the very time and place they are seeking to access any health service, but in particular a service for abortion.

I am guided in this respect, of course, by my own personal views and experiences. I cannot imagine the pain, the suffering and the trauma that go through not just the woman's mind and her life, but that of her partner, her friends and her family, when faced with a choice about continuing a pregnancy or not. I have been through a dozen cycles of IVF and I have had multiple miscarriages. I know grief and loss and I understand completely what it is like to no longer be able to carry your baby. But I was never confronted by people around my reproductive choices. I was never intimidated or harassed by anybody when facing my reproductive choices and my losses, so why should a woman faced with this decision have to go through this?

There have been recent challenges to similar legislation in Tasmania and Victoria and these were rejected by the High Court of Australia, stating that zones did not create and impermissibly burden the freedom of communication on governmental and political matters that is implied in the constitution. These challenges have failed. Who are we to argue with the High Court?

I have received a number of messages already since speaking about this yesterday. Last night, I received a message from a supporter of this legislation and his name is Shane. Shane and his wife were faced with a terrible decision: whether or not to terminate a pregnancy at 20 weeks. This was due to their son being diagnosed with a terrible medical condition not compatible with life. After weighing up the ongoing medical problems a child would have, their own situations, how they would deal with the remainder of this pregnancy and the toll this was taking on their relationship, they made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

They then went to the Belmore Terrace Pregnancy Advisory Centre in Woodville, a place filled with loving and caring staff to provide them with support. However, the same love and care was not shown to them at the gate. Shane and his wife were confronted by protestors. Protestors were not only outside the centre but at a cafe and a clothing shop really distastefully named Reborn Babywear adjacent to the centre. I am not sure what kind of evil this is that you would put people through at a time in their life when going to a pregnancy advisory centre for care. It is some new kind of evil that I just do not understand. Last night, Shane said to me, and I quote:

These people run a purely psychological game, they're not protesting, they're causing massive harm at an extremely vulnerable time, and they know it, they run it like that on purpose, it's deeply evil.

At a time when Shane and his wife together were in this deeply emotional state, with a desperately wanted pregnancy, these protestors made it worse. Needless to say, Shane in part blames this experience for the eventual breakdown of the marriage, the inability to cope with this grief and trauma that they went through. He told me a lot more about that day, but I choose not to put you through the realities of what was done to him and his wife by the protesters. The bill seeks to prevent this type of psychological distress to women and families.

I have also been communicating with a wonderful clinician named Brigid Coombe, who was a clinical nurse from 1994 to 2002 and a director of this clinic until 2012. She is a registered nurse with a master's in community health and primary care. She is no lightweight; she is a professional dynamo. We need to listen to professionals and the evidence and the science when making these decisions. She is highly respected, and I acknowledge and thank her for her enduring work.

Her personal experience of protesters over an 18-year period as a staff member includes protesters anticipating and arriving at the workplace where you remain unsure of what you will confront; regardless, you know that these people are there to make you uncomfortable. You know they will have material that makes false and outrageous claims about the work that you do and the people who you care for.

For so many women the experience is shocking. On arrival at the clinic, they are teary, anxious and in no fit state to access appropriate information, which is what they are going there for. Their support people—it may be their husband, their partner, their mother, their grandmother, their friend, their sister; I have provided support to someone so it could have been me—are distressed at being unable to ensure protection, and they are angry, and rightly so.

The job of the clinical staff becomes one of managing their own emotions about the injustice of a patient's experience while helping them to do likewise and focus on their immediate healthcare needs. There are many stories that Brigid is able to relate to me regarding the impact and the confrontation that have occurred over her decades of working in this situation, none of which should be put up with by anybody, healthcare workers or people attending a clinic at a time in their life when they need love and support.

Emily, from the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition, said that she found it so intimidating walking past the protesters that it makes her enormously angry. She recently had to support a friend going to the centre and was deeply distressed by encountering the protesters. I think these are powerful stories that need to be heard. We need to stop this type of intimidation at what is such a vulnerable time. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Attorney-General, the South Australian Law Reform Institute and many other people who took the initiative of developing and supporting conversations around this private member's bill to address a longstanding problem.

The bill entitles women and those accompanying them to access these services in a safe and confidential manner without the threat of harassment. It enables staff to access their workplace without being verbally abused, obstructed or threatened. It is decent. It does not seek to amend laws about abortion itself. It does nothing regarding access to abortion, which is a legal health process.

I ask all members to consider supporting this bill. I look forward to having many conversations in the near future about the bill. I am happy to hear from any member who has any issues or changes that they are thinking about at this point. I am certainly available at any time to discuss that. I commend the bill to the house. I seek leave to insert the explanation of clauses in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary 1-Short title

2—Amendment provisions

These clauses are formal

Part 2—Amendment of Health Care Act 2008

3—Insertion of Part 5A

This clause inserts a new part 5A

5A—Health access zones

48 B—Interpretation

Provides definitions under this Part for a health access zone, prohibited behaviour, protected premises, and public area.

A prohibited behaviour means:

To threaten, intimidate or harass another person; or

To obstruct another person approaching, entering or leaving protected premises; or

To record (by any means whatsoever) images of a person approaching, entering or leaving protected premises; or

To communicate, or attempt to communicate, with a person about the subject of abortion; or

To engage in any other behaviour of a kind prescribed by the regulations

48 C—Minister may declare premises to be protected premise

This section allows the Minister to declare specified premises to be protected premises for the purposes of this Part, by notice in the Gazette. This section outlines the requisite conditions for the Minister to consider (the Minister must be satisfied that abortions are being or will be lawfully performed at the premises), and also allows for the Minister to vary or revoke a notice under this section.

48 D—Certain behaviour prohibited in health access zones

Creates an offence for engaging in prohibited behaviour in a health access zone, with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 2 years. However, the section also specifies that subsections 1 does not apply to a person employed or otherwise providing services at the protected premise, or does not apply if permission has been given by the person being recorded/communicated with.

48 E—Police officer may direct person to leave health access zone

Allows for a police officer to direct a person to leave a health access zone if they suspect that that person is engaged or about to be engaged in prohibited behaviour within the health access zone. This section also provides for an offence and penalty for someone who fails to comply with a direction under this section, and for re-entering a health access zone within 24 hours of a direction under this section.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pederick.

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