Vic Law Reform Report

[dadams]

Forwarded message:

The Law Reform Committee intends to table its final report for the Inquiry on Wednesday 28 March 2012.

The Committee is not able to comment on the content of the report before it
has been presented to Parliament.

Parliament will commence sitting at 9.30am on the 28th. The report should
be tabled by 9.45am, after which copies of the report will be available on
the Committee's website
(www.parliament.vic.gov.au/lawreform).

The report will be tabled in both Houses of Parliament, and Committee
members are able to make statements about the report in Parliament. In the
Legislative Council, Ms Petrovich will have the opportunity of making a
comment at the time the report is tabled. In the Legislative Assembly,
there is a period between mid-morning and lunch allocated to statements on
Parliamentary Committee reports (but we are not sure exactly what time this
will be). Members of the public can watch proceedings live from the public
gallery in either House, if they wish to, or can watch proceedings streamed
online: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/video-and-audio/live-broadcasts

Please feel free to let others know that the report will be tabled on the
28th.

[dadams]

The news I have just received is that the VLRC has recommended that DC people be granted retrospective access to records and identifying information.
I don't have anymore details at the moment.
But it will still require legislation.
This is a world first.

[Quinny]

YAY!!!!!

I hope that is the case.

[dadams]

The government response can be found here:
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/lawrefrom/iadcpiad/DCP_Interim_Govt_Resp_2012-10-11.pdf
Basically they wish to survey the views of donors before deciding whether to follow through with any recommendations.

[Quinny]

I don't want to discount their views either but would any come up with a compelling reason to keep their anonymity and thus deny access to the pre-1988 people to know who their donor is?

[dadams]

Those views were part of the 2 year inquiry process anyway. Now they want another 6 months. But if they are going to research those views more then equally they should research the views of the other groups - parents and offspring.

[dadams]

For those people who wish to see the changes recommended put into place a petition has been started up at:
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-victorian-government-legislate-to-ensure-equality-and-certainty-for-donor-conceived-people?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=url_share&utm_campaign=url_share_after_sign
Feel free to sign.