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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-29 Daily Xml
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Donor Conception Register

The Hon. C. BONAROS (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Health and Wellbeing a question about donor conception registers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Along with thousands of donor-conceived people, I was absolutely delighted last year when the state government agreed to establish a register of sperm, eggs and embryo donors in South Australia. This followed a surprising, but very much welcome, backflip by the government on its original decision to oppose the register, which was the centrepiece of a private member's bill I introduced in October of last year.

For those of you who may have forgotten—I am sure the Hon. John Dawkins is not amongst them—the government's about-face support of the register came during the debate on the government's planned surrogacy laws, which were successfully passed and will now make surrogacy easier for more people, whereby I introduced amendments to have the register included in that bill. Thank goodness that went well.

In that complete reversal from the original position, the Attorney-General agreed to the amendments and the legislation was passed in a history-making milestone for thousands of people born with donor assistance in South Australia. Of course, under that legislation, the register needs to be established within two years. My questions to the minister are:

1. Given it has now been five months since the legislation was passed, how is the establishment of the register progressing?

2. Can the minister provide an update on the sort of model that will be adopted for the register?

3. How much, if any, money has been set aside initially for its establishment?

4. If it is known, what will the annual budget be in terms of maintaining that register?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:47): I certainly don't accept the characterisation of the honourable member that this government backflipped. This government has an unshakeable commitment to ensuring that people who have been conceived through donor conception have access to their genetic heritage.

We have only been in power for a little over two years, and yet it has been decades that this issue has not been resolved, almost two decades. I recognise that knowing one's own genetic heritage is a right and is integral to identity, and we are pleased to be moving towards a register.

In terms of the time frame going forward, as the honourable member says, we are five months into a two-year time frame. The government is looking through a range of models. Let's be clear: just because the amendments got through the lower house didn't mean that the problems in the honourable member's model somehow magically disappeared. We have to work through a range of issues, and we will continue to do that in a workmanlike way.

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