Australian Law Reform Commission

Once again, yesterday's scare campaign has become today's public policy.

[news transition sound effect] With the Australian Law Reform Commission due to report soon on Australia's surrogacy laws, we're already seeing media stories making the case for easier access to commercial surrogacy, including and especially for same-sex couples who want children.

Now, the circumstances can be heartbreaking, but no one has a right to a baby, and no adult, gay or straight, has the right to deliberately deprive a child of the love and relationship of his or her mother.

Renting women's wombs and buying and selling babies must never become acceptable in a civil society.

And in fact, it's two documents.

One is an email chain between the department and the ALRC running from June to July, 2024.

And the other is the final terms of reference themselves signed off by the then Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus.

All right, and what do the documents show? So what the documents show is that the department approached the ALRC's executive director and president with a proposed draft for the TORs.

They described it as provided in confidence and it had also gone to the ministers for foreign affairs and immigration given their portfolio interest in surrogacy with people going overseas to acquire children who they bring back to Australia.

Good.

And there was a meeting on the 17th of June, 2024, and at least one phone call around the same time, neither of which is documented anywhere in what's been released.

So we know they happened, but not what was said.

What does that tell us? There's a shortage of surrogates here and intended parents go overseas.

So it's one of the driving factors as to why the Australian Law Reform Commission has been carrying out its surrogacy review.

The data just demonstrates that the current system in Australia is not fit for purpose.

It doesn't meet the needs of intended parents and children because intended parents will much more likely go overseas than local.

Andrew West on ABC Radio National, ABC Listen and across the Pacific on Radio Australia and that story soon.

Australia's Law Reform Commission is due to release its review of surrogacy laws this week.

Advocates have lobbied hard for commercial surrogacy for those who don't want or can't have a natural pregnancy.

But the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Reem Al-Salem, worries about the exploitation of poor women.

the distinction between commercial and altruistic surrogacy is an artificial distinction because really what allows surrogacy to flourish is the ability to buy, to commission the buying of children and to pay.

This payment, by the way, most of it goes to the intermediaries, to the clinics, to those who benefit from the commodification of the bodies of women and girls.

I actually had a meeting with the Australian Law Reform Commission.

It was a very good meeting.

My question is to the Attorney-General.

Attorney-General, although the Australian Law Reform Commission released its final report on sexual violence justice reforms more than 18 months ago, many of the recommendations are yet to be adopted.

Attorney-General, why the delay and will the government commit to implementing the report's recommendations, particularly recommendation 10, which requires complainants to be notified when their personal information is sought and gives them the right to legal representation in such applications? I call

to the Attorney-General.

And then we had something very, very, very annoying happening in Australia.

And that is that we had an Australian Law Reform Commission review that started at the beginning of 25 and They were supposed to finish at the end of July, but the final report was delayed by six weeks and will now be delivered to the Attorney General on the 11th of September.

And then the Attorney General has 15 working days to pass it on to the Parliament.

She has to pass it on to the Parliament and only then will it become public? And, you know, that brings it just before Christmas and I wouldn't put it past them to then come up with some laws over Christmas when everybody's on holidays.

Now, The Australian Law Reform Commission review was actually asked for by a national... inquiry into surrogacy in 2016.

They tasked the ALRC with looking at the different laws in the different states and territories because surrogacy is not regulated nationally, it is regulated by all the states.

And the task was to look at if perhaps these laws could be made a bit more similar.

Australia is edging dangerously closer to commercial surrogacy.

The Albanese government's Law Reform Commission is reviewing our surrogacy laws.

The Minsk government is reviewing the New South Wales Surrogacy Act.

While a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry chaired by the National's Sarah Mitchell with the Greens' Amanda Conn as deputy chair has also been examining assisted reproduction and surrogacy.