Inquiry ignores key evidence from LGBTQIA+ communities
Greens spokesperson for LGBTQIA+ Dr Amanda Cohn has filed a dissenting statement to the report of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Fertility support and assisted reproductive treatment, saying evidence from families and experts was ignored, and that the report leaves out reforms that would have supported rainbow families.
Labor and Liberal MPs voted against amendments ensuring that courts can grant parentage orders for children born through overseas surrogacy when it is in the child’s best interests, as intended by the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTQIA+) Act 2024.
“It is heart-breaking that there are families in NSW where loving parents cannot be recognised as legal parents of their children because of technicalities that have arisen in the implementation of these new laws,” Dr Cohn said.
The committee also failed to make any recommendations to improve access to surrogacy.
“It’s astonishingly gutless that Liberal and Labor party members voted together to gut every drafted recommendation relating to surrogacy from this report altogether,” Dr Cohn wrote in her dissenting statement.
The removed recommendations included pre-birth parentage orders, allowing altruistic surrogates to advertise, and a regulated framework for compensated surrogacy with capped payments and safeguards against exploitation.
“Under the current framework for altruistic surrogacy, everyone involved in the process is compensated, except the surrogate who often remains financially out-of-pocket,” Dr Cohn said.
All committee members except the Greens and the Animal Justice Party also rejected a recommendation to make legislation inclusive of all people who can conceive, parent or donate eggs or sperm, including replacing “women” with “family” where appropriate.
The Greens also dissented over the report’s failure to address a donor shortage forcing some families interstate for fertility support. This is partly due to NSW Health’s interpretation that the five-women donor limit applies globally, which no other Australian jurisdiction does. The Greens are calling for a limit of ten families Australia-wide or, at a minimum, for the limit to apply only within NSW.
“The Greens will continue to advocate for the important recommendations of this inquiry to be implemented, both those contained in this report, as well as the ones that were left on the cutting room floor,” Dr Cohn said.