Get ready for the House of Reps surrogacy inquiry

On Thursday Federal Attorney-General Senator George Brandis announced that there would be a federal parliamentary surrogacy inquiry. Hooray! This is something that I have spent considerable time and effort in pushing for. We need some sanity with our surrogacy laws.

The House of Representatives Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee has to report back by June. Submissions are due by February. The committee wrote to me yesterday and asked me to make a submission. Talk about quick!

The terms of reference are very wide:

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs will inquire and report into the regulatory and legislative aspects of international and domestic surrogacy arrangements, with a focus on:

1. the role and responsibility of states and territories to regulate surrogacy, both international and domestic, and differences in existing legislative arrangements
2. medical and welfare aspects for all parties involved, including regulatory requirements for intending parents and the role of health care providers, welfare services and other service providers
3. issues arising regarding informed consent, exploitation, compensatory payments, rights and protections for all parties involved, including children
4. relevant Commonwealth laws, policies and practices (including family law, immigration, citizenship, passports, child support and privacy) and improvements that could be made to enable the Commonwealth to respond appropriately to this issue (including consistency between laws where appropriate and desirable) to better protect children and others affected by such arrangements
5. Australia’s international obligations
6. the adequacy of the information currently available to interested parties to surrogacy arrangements (including the child) on risks, rights and protections
7. information sharing between the Commonwealth and states and territories, and
8. the laws, policies and practices of other countries that impact upon international surrogacy, particularly those relating to immigration and citizenship

The Committee is comprised 5-4 Government/Opposition members. The Chair is George Christensen, National Party, from Queensland.