2015-12-04
The Greens are very pleased that the Parliament will pass the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2015 tonight. This bill is the outcome of a truly outstanding effort by a lot of very determined people who are committed to the safety and wellbeing of women and their right to access safe and legal health care. I remind the chamber, as Mrs Peulich has, that abortion is a legal medical procedure in Victoria, regardless of any member's thoughts around the morality or ethics of that particular procedure, which are almost irrelevant at this point, because it is lawful to access an abortion in Victoria and will continue to be so. In the end, this bill reflects the Parliament working at its very best — that is, together.
Before I go on to my substantive contribution I will acknowledge some people in particular, starting with Ms Patten and her staff for forcing this matter onto the legislative agenda. Without Ms Patten's steadfast commitment to bringing this issue not only to the forefront of public discourse but ultimately to the parliamentary agenda, we would not be debating this bill today. It is often very difficult for crossbenchers, but with this bill we can see both the importance of having minor parties in the Parliament and the power that we wield. It truly quashes the argument that a vote for a minor party is a wasted vote as we witness tangible outcomes for women in response to a long-held need in the community.
The government must also be acknowledged for its preparedness to take on this issue. To its credit, the government saw the merit in the substance of the Sex Party's earlier bill and without delay undertook to iron out its flaws and put much greater resources to work in producing the current bill. I also acknowledge the efforts of some of the senior members of the Liberal Party, in particular Mary Wooldridge and Georgie Crozier.
I also acknowledge those organisations outside the Parliament who have been advocating for this measure for many years, who walk the hard yards with women in very difficult situations every day and who understand better than most the profound effect the outcome of this bill will have on thousands of Victorian women into the future.
In particular I acknowledge Susie Allanson, as I did in my last contribution, the clinical psychologist at the East Melbourne clinic, and her staff, who have been working under tremendously stressful conditions for over two decades. I mention Susie again because of her extraordinary contribution to women's rights and women's access to health care in Victoria. It is truly a testament to their resilience at that clinic and their commitment to the health and wellbeing of Victorian women not only that they have continued that work under those conditions but also that they have continued to push for reform.
The work of the staff at the East Melbourne clinic, and indeed the staff at all of Victoria's abortion clinics, is truly outstanding in its service to women, women's health care and right of choice. It is not often that we get the opportunity to acknowledge their service in a place like this, their everyday work and the fact that they are able to help so many women and their families.
I also acknowledge the work that has been done over the better part of a decade by my colleague Colleen Hartland, who held the women's portfolio for the Greens before I took over this year. I also acknowledge Ms Hilary Taylor, who was Ms Hartland's parliamentary intern in 2011. Ms Taylor's report, entitled Accessing Abortion — Improving the Safety of Access to Abortion, recommends the approach that has been taken in this bill.
Ms Taylor was deservedly jointly awarded the parliamentary internship prize for her excellent report. The access zones approach is the most sensible approach to this issue. It both maintains the right of people to protest against abortion and protects the safety and privacy of the women, staff and others who need access to lawful health services.
This is the approach that has been taken in other states and territories, including Tasmania and the ACT. I would like to acknowledge the wonderful work done by the Greens and many others in those jurisdictions. As we know, the Greens bill in the ACT passed in October. Women in the ACT will now benefit from a 150-metre access zone around abortion clinics, which is what this bill strives to achieve.
This is a very good bill in my view. It completes the unfinished business left over after the Parliament made the historic decision to decriminalise abortion in 2008. That paved the way for women, in consultation with medical professionals, to have much greater control over their bodies. It follows from that decision that women, staff and other people who want or need access to lawful health services should be protected from harassment and intimidation. Ideally safe access zones would have been part of the 2008 bill, and the Greens of course wanted safe access zones to be included in the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 when it came before the Parliament seven years ago. As a perfect example of that, when Tasmania decriminalised abortion in 2013, safe access zones were included in that bill.
But this is certainly a case of better late than never. The main purpose of this bill is to protect the safety and privacy of women, staff and other people who are entering and leaving abortion clinics. In my view, as has been expressed by others in the chamber, the bill achieves this purpose in a very balanced way by also protecting the freedom of expression and assembly of those people who want to continue to protest against a woman's right to have an abortion.
I could not disagree with those people more strongly, because I fundamentally believe in every woman's right to choose what happens to her body and to make medical decisions that affect her. But I also believe very strongly in people's right to voice their opinions and to gather in protest. That is a fundamental democratic right, and this bill protects that right up to the point where that protest activity causes harm to the women accessing abortion clinics.
We already know how access zones or bubble zones work. There is a bubble zone around this Parliament. I have said it before: there is much less need for a bubble zone around Parliament than there is for bubble zones around abortion clinics. This bill acknowledges that protest activity, counselling or whatever you want to call it by people who disagree with a woman's right to choose what happens to her body harms other people when that activity takes place immediately outside an abortion clinic.
If people want to protest against abortion, they should come here to do it. If they want to protest outside an abortion clinic, all this bill requires is that they do it at least 150 metres away. If people want to counsel women against having abortions, which is what many of the people who stand outside abortion clinics claim they are doing, then they should get the appropriate qualifications and do it in a way that does not cause additional harm. This bill says that within safe access zones the rights of women and clinic employees to privacy, freedom of movement and freedom to access lawful health services without being harassed or intimidated must take precedence over the right of anybody else to protest or counsel against abortion.
I have said this before, and I will repeat it here: in the floods of emails I have received and that my colleagues have received from people urging us to vote against this bill, there seems to be very little acknowledgment of a woman's agency in her decision to have an abortion. Having an abortion is very often one of the most difficult decisions a woman has to make. Women who consider having abortions do so after a lot of deliberation, and for very good reasons. It is simply not the case that women who choose to have abortions are ill informed or that they have not considered all the consequences and implications of that choice.
This bill is tighter and more targeted than the Sex Party's earlier bill, and I do not say that as a criticism of the Sex Party — far from it. The Sex Party's role in the legislative success of this reform is fundamental, but the government does have greater resources at its disposal. This bill expressly extends its scope to people leaving abortion clinics, whereas the scope of the earlier bill may have been limited to people entering the clinics.
In prohibiting people from communicating about abortion inside a safe access zone, the bill includes a requirement that the communication is 'reasonably likely to cause distress or anxiety'. This wording would presumably prevent the legislative net from catching people who might inadvertently be discussing the issue of abortion when they happen to be within 150 metres of a clinic. We thought the wording in the previous bill created a net that was slightly too large — likewise, the insertion of the words 'without reasonable excuse' into the definitions regarding interference and intentionally recording. A council worker who is digging up a footpath, for example, within a safe access zone may well be impeding access to an abortion clinic, but she or he would certainly have a reasonable excuse for doing so and would not therefore fall foul of the act.
The bill also makes it clear that the prohibitions do not extend to employees of abortion clinics and that the definition of a place where abortion services are provided does not extend to chemists. These were all raised as potential issues with the previous bill, and I am pleased to see that they have been addressed in this bill.
On behalf of the Greens, I commend the bill and acknowledge the excellent work done by all parties in this Parliament to get this legislation up. I look forward to the day when women can at long last access abortion clinics without being harassed and intimidated.