 Political Corrections
with Margo Kingston
Wedge Comes Between Everyone
The proposed ban on single women accessing sperm banks and IVF clinics was a hell-for-leather debate in 2000, so now that John Howard wants to do it again, here's a reminder of the story so far.
In August 1999 a straight, single woman consulted a Melbourne gynaecologist specialising in reproductive technology. He believed he should assist but could not because Victorian law banned access to single women. He asked the Federal Court to rule that the Victorian law was overridden by the federal Sex Discrimination Act, which bans marital status discrimination in the provision of services.
As required when constitutional questions are raised, he advised state and federal attorneys-general, who had the right to intervene, and then to appeal. None was interested, including the federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams.
In July 2000 Justice Ross Sundberg struck down the Victorian law. Howard suddenly cried foul, reversing his Government's lack of interest. He discovered a new, Howard right: 'the right of a child born into this world to have the role model of both a mother and a father'. His bombshell wrecked what had been a successful Labor Party federal conference, as Labor feminists and some Labor Catholics fought it out. Labor finally agreed to oppose the plan, but several senators said they could cross the floor.
On August 17, 2000, Williams released his proposed law. I thought there must be a drafting error, for it contradicted Howard's new right. Williams made it lawful for the states to refuse or restrict access 'on the grounds of marital status'. That meant states could ban de facto couples.
But Williams said this effect was intended, even though he'd just told Parliament his law meant the states could limit fertility treatments 'to married women and those living in a de facto relationship'.
Asked why he had discriminated against de facto couples for the first time in 16 years, since the Sex Discrimination Act had passed, he said the states should legislate 'as they consider appropriate'. Howard's office backed Williams.
How could Liberal Party women have condoned this deceit?
West Australian Liberal Julie Bishop's state asserts it can discriminate by saying women married for a day can get access but de facto couples have to live together for five years before they can. She was outraged - the party room had approved Williams's bill sight unseen and he had not disclosed that it allowed discrimination against de facto couples. She protested to Howard and Williams. By the next afternoon, Howard backed down. A plan ripping apart the Labor Party was now threatening to tear apart his own.
The de facto scam only emphasised that the child's right to the care of a mother and father was not the basis of Government action, but a cover for it. If it was the basis, the new law would have guaranteed access to a single woman when her sperm donor or another man had agreed to be a father to the child.
By February 2001 the Senate committee examining the bill reported. Liberal moderate Marise Payne, the Democrats and Labor found the bill breached our international obligations. The bill never came to the Senate and lapsed when the election was called. (In August 2001 Williams gave Catholic bishops permission to appeal against the Sundberg decision, now more than a year old, to the High Court.)
Yet since last week, when the High Court threw out the appeal - partly on the basis that if the Government cared it would have intervened in the case earlier - Howard again finds the matter urgent. Just think of all those poor children born of single mothers through assisted reproduction without 'a father' while Howard twiddled his thumbs!
Howard had said he might give the Liberals a conscience vote. Another unprecedented action, surely, proving yet again the relativism of his conscience. It wasn't a matter of conscience in 2000 - nor was the mandatory sentencing of children in the Northern Territory, where his concern for children's rights was non-existent and he turned down desperate pleas for a conscience vote from some Liberals.
He had considered a conscience vote simply as a means to further fracture the Labor Party, which was already deeply divided already over refugee policy. Perfect wedge politics.
His rethinking of the conscience vote yesterday may mean he feels there'll be enough dissenters in his party to risk defeat for the bill anyway, or at least to cause him embarrassment.
Using people desperate to have children for craven political purpose is not nice to see. That's politics, Howard style.
Email: mkingston@mail.fairfax.com.au
Margo's web diary - www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/webdiary/
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