Wednesday, 17 August 2022

Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms PATTEN:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:16): This is the Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2012—just for clarity. The legislation allows a clinician to hold a conscientious objection. However, it also enshrines an obligation to refer a pregnant person seeking termination of pregnancy care to appropriate services. The current legislation does not enshrine any institutional conscientious objection to providing termination or contraceptive health treatment. People receiving treatment at denominational hospitals who may require access to termination of pregnancy or contraception procedures are usually referred to neighbouring services offering this care. Sexual and reproductive health hubs also coordinate with metropolitan and regional services to develop local referral pathways for surgical termination to ensure women can access the termination care they need.

Unlike those opposite, we will never cut health funding. We are a government that has always invested in health infrastructure, workers and services. Under Kennett, 1300 beds and 12 hospitals were closed. The previous Liberal government cut more than $1 billion from the health budget during their four years in office. The Liberals promised big. They said they would add 800 new hospital beds, and in the end they only delivered 88. Compare this to Labor’s health funding record: more than $11 billion has been invested in health infrastructure since 2014. This includes a record investment of $2.9 billion as part of the 2022–23 budget. We are delivering hospital upgrades and new hospitals in Melton and Barwon, in the women’s and children’s, in Frankston and Ballarat and in locations right across the state. Our government’s investment in our healthcare system and the workers that sacrifice so much to keep us safe has totalled more than $158 billion. They are there for us; we are there for them. We work with and listen to experts on what is needed in our health system while those opposite make empty promises.

Thanks to a strong political will and the leadership of Labor governments in Victoria, Victoria is Australia’s most progressive state when it comes to women’s rights and access to reproductive choices. The seeds of this were sown in 2008 when the former Brumby Labor government took the historic step of legislating the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 to decriminalise abortion. Prior to this, abortion existed as a criminal offence, with the provision of abortion services guided by a legal judgement made in 1969 known as the Menhennitt ruling. Decriminalising abortion provided much-needed clarity for women, health practitioners and the community about the circumstances under which the termination of pregnancy could be performed. In recognising the sensitivity and complexity of the issue, detailed advice was sought from the Victorian Law Reform Commission, and the final bill reflected the commission’s widespread consultation and expert input.

What about the issue of the right to access safe pregnancy termination? It is important to note for the purposes of the private members bill that we are debating here today that an individual’s right to access safe termination of pregnancy care is enshrined in the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Act 2008. The act ensures that clear laws are in place to protect the decisions of people accessing termination of pregnancy in consultation with their doctor. The act regulates health practitioners who provide termination of pregnancy care rather than public health services or other providers. This legislation protects a clinician’s choice to hold a conscientious objection; however, it also enshrines an obligation to refer a pregnant person seeking termination of pregnancy care to appropriate services.

On the issue of safe access zones, the Andrews Labor government has a strong record of supporting women and gender-diverse people to make choices that are right for them, including contraception, reproductive and sexual health services—all services essential to health and wellbeing. In 2015, under former health minister Jill Hennessy, we legislated safe access zones to ensure all women can access health services that provide abortions without fear, intimidation, harassment or obstruction by protesters opposing the provision of these services. I acknowledge the very important role that Ms Patten played in that reform. For too long women accessing abortion services were subject to verbal and psychological abuse designed to discourage them from accessing these services, but with the provision of safe access zones women and staff can access these premises safely without experiencing the stress, fear and anxiety that occurred in the past when they encountered anti-abortion groups outside these premises.

In another first, it was under the Andrews Labor government in 2017 that Victoria produced its first-ever women’s sexual and reproductive health strategy. Sexual and reproductive health includes the right to have healthy and respectful relationships; inclusive, safe and appropriate services; and access to accurate information and effective and affordable methods of family planning and fertility regulation. Specific reproductive health issues are associated with different life stages, and the impact of poor reproductive health is greater on women due to both biological and social factors. In addition, we know there are a number of specific reproductive health issues that affect the health and wellbeing of Victorian women, such as endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome and menopause, which are not as well understood and managed as they could be.

The strategy sits within the world-leading action we have taken to address the key factors that impact on women’s sexual and reproductive health, including Victoria’s and Australia’s first Royal Commission into Family Violence, completed in 2015, which produced 227 recommendations, which our government has adopted in full; Victoria’s first-ever gender equality strategy, launched in 2016 to drive real change through removing barriers to women’s equality; and the passing of Victoria’s and Australia’s first-ever Gender Equality Act in 2020, which requires 300 public sector employers, including local councils and universities, to report on and improve gender equality in the workplace.

The first women’s sexual and reproductive health strategy has been an essential step towards ensuring that all Victorian women, regardless of where they live and how much money they have, are given access to the services and the support that they need. The strategy was backed by a $6.6 million investment to improve women’s access to affordable health care, contraception and termination services across the state. As a result of this investment, since 2017 we have delivered eight women’s sexual and reproductive health hubs—four in metro Melbourne and four in regional Victoria. Once again a uniquely Victorian innovation, these new hubs help normalise sexual and reproductive health for women, girls and gender-diverse people by providing access to quality care, evidence-based information and services close to home. The hubs provide testing, care and treatment locally, creating integrated service delivery from primary care through to tertiary care, promoting accessible, local, inclusive and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care.

Because these services are part of existing healthcare settings, the significance of having a trusted health provider close to home that women and girls at all stages can visit without stigma cannot be underestimated. These hubs focus on the key reproductive health issues facing women across their life course, including menstrual health, contraception, abortion, assisted reproductive treatment and specific reproductive health issues such as endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome and menopause. Early access to evidence-based information is critical, and these hubs are an important part of the network of service provision across the state to access medical terminations or obtain referrals for surgical terminations. In recognition of the need to continue to address women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services, last week the Minister for Health announced a further three of these hubs in Latrobe, Shepparton and Warrnambool. This brings the total investment to more than $10.5 million to deliver and expand the network of sexual and reproductive health hubs, bringing the total to 11.

Victoria’s first reproductive sexual health plan, launched in 2017, recognises that access to timely and trusted information is a key part of improving women’s sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing. Consultation undertaken in the preparation of the plan revealed that easy access to information about reproductive and sexual health was lacking for women of all ages, particularly younger women. Young people in general may find it challenging to access reproductive health services or indeed call services, let alone travel to these services outside their local area.

One of the key actions we took in response was to establish Victoria’s first ever state-funded information service, 1800 My Options, in 2018. A free and confidential phone line and website, 1800 My Options provides Victorian women with sexual and reproductive health information and directs them to clinical services such as contraception, pharmacy services, counselling support, termination providers and a range of other sexual health services. The service is pro-choice, non-judgemental, women-centred and independent, working alongside hundreds of trusted healthcare providers in Victoria to link women to the services that best serve their needs. Importantly, 1800 My Options incorporates a confidential and women-centred phone line. Since it was established it has supported well over 13 000 callers and more than 60 000 website users. More recently, 1800 My Options provided critical pathways to the service system during 2020 when the impact of COVID-19 made finding services that meet their needs challenging for many women due to workforce changes and other barriers such as financial insecurity, rurality, language or visa status. It is such a simple thing that makes an incredible difference to women looking for timely, trusted information about their sexual and reproductive health.

If we look at women’s health services more broadly, women’s health services play a vital role in reducing the impact of gender inequality on health and wellbeing outcomes. Women’s health services were first established in Victoria in the late 1980s and advocate for a gendered approach to health that reduces inequalities and improves health outcomes for women. Victoria leads the nation in providing a network of coordinated women’s health services that covers the entire state. The 2021–22 Andrews Labor government budget invested $33.8 million in women’s health services, and I shall now list those services: $2.4 million for women’s health to support the health, safety and wellbeing of Victorian women; $1.9 million to support women’s health services to prevent family violence and promote women’s mental health and wellbeing; $19.9 million to deliver family violence response services; $9.1 million in annual funding for the Victorian women’s health program, which works with community and across the system to improve health equity and outcomes for Victorian women; and $0.5 million in grants to nine women’s health services and Gender Equity Victoria to support COVID-19 vaccine promotion and education and capacity-building efforts for women in their communities, including translating messages into language for multicultural communities.

The 2022–23 Andrews Labor government budget invested a further $19.4 million over two years to further consolidate the capacity of our women’s health services to improve the health and wellbeing of Victorian women, including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and prevention of family violence. This funding recognises the significant role of our dedicated women’s health services, ensuring they can reach more women, including in some of our most at-risk or disadvantaged communities, to provide a range of tailored information and supports, to prevent family violence and all other forms of violence against women and to build capacity for access to other health services, such as mental health services.

Take, for example, the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, which led the workforce of multilingual health educators project in collaboration with Victorian women’s health services and Gender Equity Victoria. The project placed and trained 50 health educators in regional women’s health services, enabling them to reach migrant women across the state with in-language health education. A total of 1800 migrant women across Victoria received vital information through health education sessions and engagement, including information about COVID-19 vaccination.

Another critical program we have proudly funded to improve women’s access to contraception as well as medical and surgical terminations and sexual health services is the clinical champion network led by the Royal Women’s Hospital. Another key part of the Andrews government’s existing sexual and reproductive health plan, the clinical champion project is improving access to safe and effective medical and surgical abortion and long-acting contraception by increasing training and capacity within our outer-metro and regional hospitals and primary health care. The network has the flexibility to respond to the needs of individual health practitioners and organisations through support, advice and mentoring. Women, irrespective of where they live, should be able to have access to safe abortion services when they need them, and this program is helping to overcome local barriers by ensuring clinicians are equipped to deliver these services across primary and secondary health care—that is, general practice, local clinics and community health services.

Advancing gender equality reigns at the heart of the Andrews Labor government’s agenda, and women’s access to sexual and reproductive health care, including contraception and termination services, is a fundamental part of this. We know that an inability to access sexual and reproductive health services can contribute to social and economic disadvantage for women and further health inequalities. As a government we are taking strong, tangible steps to ensure that we are improving women’s access to these services in every corner of our state, especially in rural and regional Victoria. Victoria’s second sexual and reproductive health plan, for 2022 to 2030, will be released in coming months, and we look forward to saying more about the further steps we are taking to improve women’s and gender-diverse people’s access to care through every stage of life.

Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:34): I rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2022. I will be supporting this bill today because I believe that public health care that is fully funded by the taxpayer should offer the full suite of public health services to those in need. Unfortunately, as it stands, publicly funded denominational hospitals are allowed to deny voluntary assisted dying services and women the right to contraception and abortion. What this has meant is that women who may be taken in an emergency situation to one of these hospitals may not be allowed the pill, even when it is their regular medicine prescribed by their doctor. Most Australian women—in fact 81 per cent of women of reproductive age—choose to use some form of birth control. What this tells me is that the policy of these denominational hospitals does not align with the majority of Australians’ views today. These are public hospitals. Patients do not always receive a choice in their provider, yet they are taken to hospitals which do not provide the health care they may require.

This bill is not about the right of doctors to conscientiously object; this right is maintained. It is about the policy of these public hospitals. Doctors who want to offer choice are being denied this choice. It is my understanding that there are nurses and doctors in these hospitals who would like to offer family planning but are unable to because of hospital policy. If these hospitals want to be publicly funded by the taxpayer, they must offer the full range of health services. The right of the doctor to refuse on the basis of conscientious objection is not affected. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:36): I rise to speak to the bill that has been presented to the house today by Ms Patten. Ms Patten, I will acknowledge, has been a long-time champion for women’s rights and health services and access to health services, and I acknowledge that—as am I, and I think we share that in common. We did have the debate on voluntary assisted dying and we had a difference of opinion at that time, but that does not mean that we do not have these debates and understand what is being put forward here.

At the outset I will say that I am opposing this bill, and I will be making my position very clear as to why I am opposing this bill. I think it is a flawed bill, based on Ms Patten’s second-reading speech, in relation to a number of areas. I want to support the work of many denominational hospitals and make the point that there is no precedent across the state where any health service needs to be mandated to provide certain services. That occurs across all public hospitals. Not every public hospital will be providing services to meet particular needs. But I do want to just take into account some of the services that are provided by a wide range of denominational hospitals here in Victoria, and they include specialist palliative care for progressive neurological disease, maternity, neonatology and paediatrics, perioperative gynaecology, women’s health services, general surgical and medical services, emergency services, rehabilitation, aged and palliative care, renal dialysis, symptom management, respite, restorative care, discharge at end of life care, acute psychiatry, extensive training and research, mental health and correctional health services, just to name a few across these health services. That is a broad range of health care that is already delivered in these denominational hospitals.

In Ms Patten’s second-reading speech she brought into the debate the Roe v. Wade issue in the United States, which just simply is not happening in Australia. I mean, we have these services here. State by state those decisions are made. We do not need to enter into an international debate like that. I think it is frankly quite inflammatory to even suggest such nonsense that was in the second-reading speech by Ms Patten in relation to this issue. To say it is happening here—it is just not. To say that women’s rights are being denied is not right in terms of what was put in the second-reading speech. The three examples that Ms Patten provided to the house at the time I think are flawed. These are just three anecdotal examples of what has gone on, and in fact I would challenge Ms Patten and say that what she is asking for is highly dangerous and puts women’s lives at risk. I said that in the bill briefing. For a woman who presents at 20 weeks to St Vincent’s emergency department, where there is no obstetric specialist care or maternity services, that is highly dangerous. That is putting that woman’s life at risk.

I am a former midwife; I know just how dangerous that is. When we did have that discussion through the bill briefing we discussed a doctor who works out of St V’s private who talks about contraception and what he provides at St V’s private—which is not in the public system, I grant. I did ring him because I trained with him. I have not seen him for a long, long time, but I rang him and I spoke to him. He said, ‘Of course we will provide contraceptive services to women if they need it’ in that facility. I asked him about this very example that Ms Patten put into her second-reading speech, and I asked him, ‘Am I right?’. He said, ‘Yes, you are. You are absolutely right’. Those services cannot be provided in a general emergency department, and if they were to be provided, that would need a huge investment in specialist care. Quite frankly I do not know how this bill got to this place in the first place because of the appropriation issues. I do not understand this, because the amount of money that would be needed to be put in to do this is enormous. You cannot have anybody just walking into an emergency department, sticking up some syntocinon and dealing with 20-week twins who are aborting or a woman who is bleeding. You just cannot do it. It is highly dangerous. So I say the argument that Ms Patten puts forward is flawed and dangerous.

I want to commend those services—services like Mercy in Heidelberg—that have highly specialised perinatal care where they are dealing with some very sick women with highly complex pregnancies like pre-eclampsia. They are doing amazing work. Ms Pulford will know the work they are doing, because she has the medical research area of responsibility. They are doing phenomenal work in highly complex pregnancies, and they deal with some very difficult issues around those highly complex pregnancies. I want to commend them for the work that they do. For those hospitals to be demonised by this bill I think is quite appalling, because that is what it is. Ms Patten brings in the denomination of the Catholic origin. As she knows, I am no huge supporter of issues that have gone on with the Catholic Church. I led the inquiry into child abuse, and I had my fair dealings with the Catholic Church. But this is wrong in terms of what these hospitals do and the services they provide. They provide excellent care in so many areas.

I just think that this is an excuse to bring in an issue that is really not there. I know from my own experience when I worked in the women’s hospital for 10 years, yes, on occasions women will be transferred from Mercy to the women’s—women who require abortions because of complex pregnancies or some other issue—where those specialist services are. That is where we should be providing this care to protect women, to protect their lives. So I am very concerned about what this bill is actually asking services to do. It is a very easy throwaway line that you must be providing services. Well, these services are not provided in every single public hospital. This is based on an ideology of Ms Patten, who said, ‘The problem is of Catholic origin’. I think that is extraordinary in itself.

I want to also say that there are other issues with the bill around the area of voluntary assisted dying. The government brought that legislation into this place some years ago. They have worked on that. There are facilities like Calvary, which provide care. Now, when I have spoken with them they have said sometimes they are very complex palliative care cases because of the neurological disease that they are dealing with, they are highly complex cases, and if anybody wants to then undertake voluntary assisted dying they are referred on appropriately. They will put that in place, and they will step back. They are never going to leave somebody like this. They are just not going to do that.

I have had that conversation with them. What I find really extraordinary is that the main facilities, institutions and organisations that this bill is targeting Ms Patten did not even have the courtesy to speak with. The implications of what she is asking for through this bill are very big because of the enormous services that need to be put in place to provide those services, and she did not even have the courtesy to speak to those people. That, in my mind, says it all, because it is lazy legislation that is based on a quick political hit that gets media attention and a media line without even understanding the ramifications of what she is supporting here.

The other thing I will say is I spoke with Marie Stopes about the services that they provide. One of their services has been shut down in Maroondah because of the pandemic and the border closures. I would ask Ms Patten: why aren’t you asking the government to reinstate and assist that organisation to have that service up and running? It was shut down because of the government’s decision to shut the borders, and doctors could not come across from interstate to help those services to operate and to help those women seeking those services. Where are you, Ms Patten, in advocating for that to be reopened? I am saying now, government, that you should be speaking to Marie Stopes and ensuring that service gets up and running, because they do provide a service for women who want termination, and I support that. I support women’s choice. You all know that; I have said it many, many times. Others will try and brand us as something that we are not. There are various views around this issue, as there should be, because there are various views in the general community about this issue. I do not have a problem with that. Everybody has a right to have a view. Ms Patten has a right to have her view, but others who do not support her view equally have a right to have their view. And I think these health organisations that have been targeted by this legislation also have a right to have a say and to be able to put their argument forward to Ms Patten, who did not even speak with them.

Ms Patten: I spoke to the doctors.

Ms CROZIER: How many doctors? I asked you to provide me with the doctors that you spoke with, and you did not provide it to me.

Ms Patten: They are too scared they will get sacked.

Ms CROZIER: They are too scared they will get sacked. Well, you can blame the government for that, because everyone is too scared to speak out on anything. Really, two doctors spoke out. I do not think anyone in this chamber can say that is good enough to have a bill with such massive implications. Two doctors—not even the health services that cater for tens and tens of thousands of Victorians in a whole range of services that I outlined at the commencement of my speech.

I say again: there is no precedent in this state for health services to be mandated in the specific care and services that they provide—none whatsoever. It does not happen at the Alfred, it does not happen in Wangaratta and it does not happen at Footscray Hospital. I want to acknowledge that the government last week made an excellent announcement, I think, to have more hubs set up in regional Victoria so there is greater access for women to medical termination, RU486. I think that is a good thing. Now, I do not know if that is in reaction to this bill that has been brought into this place that we are debating today—I suspect it probably was—but it is a good thing nevertheless because it is about accessibility and being able to give support. And that is why I say that if the likes of Marie Stopes have been shut down because of government decisions on border closures and pandemic decisions, then support them. Get them back up and running. Do not target these health services that do a phenomenal job, who provide extraordinary care and who have got specialist medical research and education as well as delivering excellent clinical care.

They have done nothing wrong here, and yet this is an ideological push to have them change their view. Well, I do not support that, because I support them to have their right to provide their services, and as I said, I have spoken to them. They will support women in what they want to do. It is not about that. They will guide them, they will support them, but to say that the likes of St Vincent’s, for instance, must provide highly specialised obstetric care would require just so much in that hospital, and that is the point I do not think Ms Patten has done her homework on in this bill. She has just rushed it in. She has used some international hoo-ha in the US to bring that ideological air in and whip up hysteria on an issue that just does not exist in this state. It is ridiculous and it is wrong. I think she can do better than this, because I think she knows what she has done and she understands that that is probably a bridge too far. To say in her second-reading speech that it is happening here—you cannot compare the two.

I want to say that under the voluntary assisted dying legislation it is illegal to have that denied. In fact the law already says that inhibiting access to voluntary assisted dying is unlawful in Victoria. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has said:

Where a health service’s values (or those of a particular department within a health service) conflict with voluntary assisted dying, the Board expects the service to utilise policies and procedures for handling applicant information requests.

That is what is happening now. People are being supported in their wishes. Women can self-medicate with oral contraception if they wish to in Catholic hospitals. If a woman’s life is at risk, then of course a hospital will do what they can to save that woman’s life, as you would expect. But this goes to some denominational hospitals that have got a range of services they are now providing for their communities.

So again I want to commend those health services that are providing a broad range of health services to millions of Victorians—tens of thousands of Victorians—and I want to commend the work that is being done elsewhere in supporting women’s rights and accessibility to free choice, because that is what I believe in. But I do not believe that this exercise of having this bill, which is going to have very significant impacts on those health services, should be supported today. I understand the government will not be supporting the bill, and I am pleased with that. I will wait to hear what Ms Pulford has to say in relation to the government’s reasoning. But again I say this bill is flawed. In fact the examples used in the second-reading speech, I think, were very dangerous and put women’s lives at risk. There are services out there, and if they need more support and funding then that should be provided.

Again I say I am concerned that this bill got through, because of the enormous amounts of funding that would be required to put in place what Ms Patten is asking for. I am surprised it has got to the point of being debated, but nevertheless we are and I am opposing Ms Patten’s bill.

Ms PULFORD (Western Victoria—Minister for Employment, Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Resources) (10:54): I am unashamedly—in fact I am proudly—pro-choice, and in 16 years in this Parliament my two proudest moments to date have been that Saturday morning when we passed the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 and then that Friday morning when we passed the voluntary assisted dying legislation. These were gruelling debates in the community and in the Parliament. They were long and they were complex.

I also saw a private members bill to decriminalise abortion introduced by my dear friend Candy Broad a year earlier, in 2007. I saw that not proceed and not pass. I also saw Colleen Hartland’s assisted dying law reform attempt come to the upper house. It proceeded to debate but it was not passed; it was not agreed to by the house. The observation that I would make, and I think this is probably a difficult pill to swallow for people on the crossbench and for people in the opposition, is there are some things that are so unbelievably complex that the machinery of government, the ability to deploy an institution like the Victorian Law Reform Commission and the complex drafting of legislation which has such profound engagement with values that people hold so dearly is something best done by government. For people who are not government MPs that might sound offensive. I genuinely do not mean for it to.

I just want to reflect on Fiona Patten’s work in this Parliament. I have the utmost admiration and indeed great affection for Ms Patten. I think she is a wonderful member of Parliament and has added a great depth and dimension to this place in her time here.

Mr Finn interjected.

Ms PULFORD: Mr Finn, you can be number 1 on your own party’s ticket—people in glass houses throwing stones and all that.

The point I want to make is that Ms Patten’s record, Ms Patten’s strong and effective advocacy, on reproductive choice and indeed on assisted dying is unimpeachable. On the question about the rights people should have and on the question about the access that people should have to these services, I would proffer that there would be not a sliver of light between Ms Patten’s view on these things and mine. But the government is opposing this legislation today, and I just wanted to try and explain and describe why.

Ms Taylor, in speaking first for the government today, talked at length about our record on reproductive choice, the reforms that we are so proud to have introduced and the very hard work that came next around equality of access and affordability of access and dealing with some of those issues that those of us that represent regional communities know have been incredibly challenging: access to reproductive services, to abortion services but also other reproductive health services.

This feels like something of a step back in time. Ms Patten referred to Roe v. Wade. That is a very, very significant problem in the United States, and I stand in solidarity with women in the United States that are trying desperately to protect their rights. Indeed our story on abortion law reform in Victoria goes back to when women started getting pregnant, but more contemporaneously in 1969 with the Menhennitt ruling. In Victoria, for all of the decades between 1969 and 2008, people—particularly women—worked to try and codify that, and then eventually we did. We had to change the composition of the Parliament in many respects to do it, but we did. Having more women in Parliament—there is an undeniable link between these things. In the United States, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, the Congress and the Senate over a very long period of time might have chosen the same path. They are in the exact opposite situation that we are now in that they have been relying on a court ruling that was decades and decades in the overturning. The efforts to change the composition of the Supreme Court have been decades in the making, and they are very, very unfortunate—well, I mean, women will die. It is a horrific situation in terms of rights and access.

On rights and access, of course there is more that we need to do to ensure safe and timely access to termination services. We need to continue, all of us, to elect and to select to our parliaments, conscious of people’s views on these things, because these are never closed. Mr Finn I do not think will mind me saying that when the Abortion Law Reform Bill passed in 2008 he declared very loudly that he would do everything he could to undo that and he would take every opportunity he could to undo that.

Mr Finn: Nothing’s changed in the meantime.

Ms PULFORD: Nothing has changed for Mr Finn in the meantime, and my vigilance on protecting what we were able to achieve has also not changed. That is important and that remains important, and I do have some concerns. There is an election coming. I would encourage all Victorian voters who care about access to reproductive services and who care about access to assisted dying to be thoughtful of these things when they cast their votes.

On the conscience vote, there has been some discussion around whether this would be a matter of conscience or not. Again I wanted to respond to that, because in the Labor Party we are a party of collective decision-making. It is one of the foundations upon which our party was formed. We have a national rule that applies throughout the land that limits very, very narrowly our conscience vote. It is very different to the philosophical view around a free vote that the Liberal Party has. We use a conscience vote rarely and sparingly. In the national rules there are two things that give rise to the conscience vote. They are not procedural matters. They are not matters of access. They are not matters of funding, which this bill engages as well. We do not believe—to a person—that this engages that for us, and it is an important principle for us. For some—a minority, but some—members of our party and our movement it is very, very important, it is literally an article of faith, that that conscience vote be afforded on those two issues. But that is not what we are here to debate today. So that is why we are all voting together on this, and that I thought seemed important for context.

On access as well, I am not in any way wanting to diminish the commitment and the work of Martin Foley, Jill Hennessy and Jenny Mikakos as health ministers in this government. As I was listening to the debate I was reminded of my first visit to the women’s policy committee of the Labor Party back in about 1995. I walked right into it unknowingly. You learn a few things on the way. We went around the table at the first meeting. It was like, ‘Right, we’ve all read the policy. What do you want to change?’. I wandered into the room and said, ‘This whole taking abortion out of the Crimes Act—can’t we do better than that? Can’t our policy be better than that?’. There was this sort of awkward hush from all the people who had been there before, going ‘Shoosh’. Some of the older and wiser girls took me aside and said, ‘We’ve got to decriminalise it first, and then we’ll deal with access. We’ll deal with access, but let’s fight the core proposition’. And you know who was in that room? You know who was in that meeting? The Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas. So I can tell you from more than 25 years of personal observation and experience about her deep commitment to universal access to these services when women decide for themselves that this is what they need to do.

Just one final point: I also feel very nervous—I do—about the reopening of these debates in the Parliament. I can feel Ms Patten looking at me and I can feel Mr Finn looking at me—and others—but they were enormous debates. There was a full year between when Candy Broad introduced her private members bill and when the legislation was passed in 2008. There was a massive community debate and engagement and the law reform commission’s work. On assisted dying it went for longer again I think. There were years between Colleen Hartland’s bill and the attempts of other people and the parliamentary committee that was chaired by a former member, Mr O’Donohue, and the work that members in this chamber did. It was an excellent report and really, really important work that I know members including Ms Hartland and Ms Patten were involved in, and they were involved in the initiation of it as well. But that was the Parliament at its best on one of the hardest things that there is to do.

I feel very, very uneasy when I pick up the bill and I see that we are going to crack these open. I just do not think that this is the answer to the challenge that some people have in relation to access to services, and I say that, Ms Patten, with all respect. I have not, as Ms Crozier and others in the chamber have—I decided to speak on this today—gone and had a whole lot of discussions with people about it, but I just want to share some reflections on the history of these things, the risk of these things that is always present, the Labor Party’s position on conscience votes and the health minister’s deep commitment to improving access. It is not for me to speak for her, but I think that we can all know that the health minister in Victoria is deeply committed to access to services and will be doing all that she can to ensure access to services.

Ms Patten, we will not be supporting this today. I will not, but I continue to stand with you on the quest to safeguard what has been won over really, really hard and long battles both on assisted dying and abortion. I think there is a better, more effective way to do the things that you are wanting to do around access to services. There are arrangements in place for transfers from hospital to hospital, medical abortion is increasingly available and there are the hubs that are in the reproductive health strategy, but we know our work is not done here. Thank you, and with that we are opposing this bill.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (11:07): I rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2022. As Ms Patten outlined in her second-reading speech, this is a bill inspired by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which since 1973 had conferred a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. I completely agree with her that ripples of sadness and fear from that decision have been felt by women and gender-diverse people not just in the United States but across the world. For some to assert in the course of this debate that it is just ‘some international hoo-ha’ completely misses the threat that women across the world have been feeling since that decision. We know that international events have domestic consequences. We know that there are those movements that still exist, scarily, to reverse hard-fought-for rights that women have fought for throughout history. And we know those movements get emboldened, get energised and get more organised when there are international decisions like that, and they start to shift our domestic politics and they start to affect the decisions that are made in parliaments such as this one.

Ms Crozier, in her contribution, wanted to dismiss this as something that was irrelevant to us, but on that point about mobilising those domestic actors, it is happening in her own party. Look at the preselections happening in the lead-up to the state election. There are actors in current political movements in Victoria who are emboldened by what happened in the United States and who are actively planning to dismantle the rights that women have won over the years, which is why it is so important to keep having these debates.

I commend Ms Patten for bringing this debate to the house. I do not think we should be worried about being perceived to crack open a debate. These debates in many ways unfortunately are always open because there are always threats to the rights that have been hard fought for and won over many, many years. Many of us are now forced to consider or reconsider the fragility of rights so intrinsic to us as power over our own bodies and so intrinsic to our national identity as the universal right to health care.

I will start my contribution by establishing why in the wake of Roe v. Wade we must also examine the issue of reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care in Victoria. While it is true that the legal and political landscape here is somewhat different to the US, there are also some very striking similarities, such as how in Victoria, as in the United States, reproductive legal rights originated from the courts, with the revolutionary Menhennitt ruling of 1969 establishing the common-law protection for legal abortion. In fact it was not until 2008 when abortion laws were passed in this place that these protections were truly safe from suffering a similar fate to Roe v. Wade. Furthermore, it is only in this year, 2022, that we can now correctly claim that abortion is decriminalised in every jurisdiction across Australia—just this year.

But while this is a notable achievement, we also should be under no illusion that all decriminalisations are created equal or that at the stroke of a pen abortion becomes freely available for all those who need it—just like other essential health care—because it is not. By way of example, I may ask, as we hear in the news about vulnerable women forced to travel hundreds of miles across state lines to access abortion services in the US: how many of us here are aware that current laws in Western Australia are still so restrictive that every year Australian women are forced to do the same thing? Decriminalisation helps to overcome a significant legal barrier, but really it is only one of the many obstacles in our fight to access reproductive health care.

Victorian women—for over a century, regardless of the laws of the day—have always faced major barriers in terms of the financial costs and the limited availability of medical professionals in accessing abortion, and sadly this remains the case today. Currently out-of-pocket expenses for surgical abortion amount to hundreds of dollars, if a person is able to find and access a GP or gynaecologist willing to provide appropriate services. There are more obstacles for those who find themselves on the wrong side of one of the increasing number of divisions across our supposedly universal health care system—the divisions between public and private, between regional and rural, between social advantage and social isolation and the perpetual division between state and federal governments over who is responsible and who should fund services. All of these inequalities are especially pronounced in reproductive health care, where they often directly influence the choices of those who need it.

Ms Patten’s bill today seeks to remove yet another barrier to accessing these services—perhaps the most ludicrously artificial and unnecessary—the division between a public hospital and the artifice of a denominational public hospital. It highlights yet another fault line with the privatisation and outsourcing of essential services. It is happening in health care and in community care and in so many other sectors where services that should be universally accessible and secular are being shaped and denied by non-secular and religious policy. Public funds should be for providing universally accessible services.

We fully support this bill, but we also urge the government to do so much more. For example, let us use this opportunity to also do what the Labor-Greens government in the ACT has done. Our national leaders in the ACT have announced what they are doing, and they are providing funding so that from next year Canberra residents will have access to free medical and surgical abortions. Whether you live in the ACT or whether you live in Victoria, the amount of money you have should not determine the types of essential health care available to you.

We are also pleased to endorse the Victorian government’s announcement just last week of three new regional sexual and reproductive health hubs. These should provide access to long-acting, reversible contraception and, I hope, medical abortion. However, surgical abortions for unwanted pregnancies beyond nine weeks gestation are still difficult to obtain in rural and regional parts of Victoria. The Greens believe we have a lot more to do in this space, coordinating and resourcing primary care with specialist sexual and reproductive health information and expertise.

We also need to provide better information and access to long-acting, reversible contraception, such as IUDs and implants, as there are still far too many unwanted pregnancies, and we urgently need to do more to prevent, track and treat sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis that have in the last decade re-emerged at alarming epidemic levels across all groups in Victoria. In fact if it was not for COVID-19, the epidemiological re-emergence of STIs which can have devastating effects on both reproductive and general health would surely be making headlines as a public health disaster. It is a measure of the problem that cases of congenital syphilis, which essentially had been eradicated from the Victorian population since the turn of the century, have re-emerged in recent years, leading to adverse pregnancy outcomes and neonatal deaths.

But it is not just about improving services, the Victorian Greens also recognise the need to address other less obvious obstacles to accessing reproductive health care. So we support the broad introduction of reproductive health leave, where employees are entitled to additional days of leave specifically to help them if they need to address reproductive and sexual health issues like having an IUD inserted or having an abortion, because people should no longer have to put off accessing or make up excuses or pretend they are on a lunch break just to access essential health care.

It is a measure of the scope of the problems and the need for urgent action that I recognise there are many more important issues that I might have touched on in addressing this issue today. But what I hope is most apparent is the fact that there can be no genuine plan to fix our health system, as many are now promising, unless that plan also addresses the many issues in sexual and reproductive health care. So it is the job of all of us—whether in government, in opposition or on the crossbench, state or federal—to start prioritising solutions to these issues, just as Ms Patten has with this bill today. It is so important we continue to remain vigilant on these hard-fought-for rights and access to essential health care. The Victorian Greens commend Ms Patten and strongly support this bill.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (11:16): I rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2022. Firstly, I cannot believe that in 2022 we are still debating abortion in this place—I cannot believe it. Abortion is a safe and legal medical procedure in Victoria. We have some of the strongest and most progressive abortion legislation in Australia, with bipartisan support to maintain this situation. This legislation, which was fought for by generations of women and healthcare providers, remains in place to protect Victorians’ reproductive autonomy. All women have the right to choose within Victoria’s legislative framework and make decisions that are right for them. I firmly uphold the reproductive rights of all women to access safe, affordable, legal and culturally appropriate sexual and reproduction health services free from stigma, harassment and discrimination.

This bill, introduced by Ms Patten, inserts a new section into the Health Services Act 1988 requiring denominational hospitals that receive public funding to provide certain services—namely, end-of-life services, advice on and provision of contraception and provision of medical and surgical abortion services. This bill affects three hospitals, the Mercy, St Vincent’s and Calvary. We are seeing this bill because as it stands these hospitals, which were founded on religious views, are still controlled by these religious beliefs at an operational level. In line with their beliefs, these hospitals do not carry out end-of-life services, do not provide advice on or supply contraceptives and do not provide medical or surgical abortions. This bill does not suggest that hospitals cannot have these views. It also does not dictate what can and cannot be done in a privately funded hospital. There is also a conscience clause that states that medical professionals can still choose not to provide these services. This remains, as is current practice. What this bill does, however, is require that these denominational hospitals that receive public funding also provide these services.

Currently these hospitals do not provide these services. However, it must be noted that although they receive public funding they currently do not receive specific public funding to provide these services, and there is no allocation under the current budget to provide more funding so they can do so. If this bill is passed, there would be real financial and operational implications for these hospitals if they had to provide these services under the current funding models. I am all about freedom of choice and the reproductive rights of all women being upheld. I am a little perplexed, though, as to why three denominational hospitals that are not funded to, nor necessarily equipped to, provide services should be forced to do so, given there are so many options available to women to exercise their reproductive rights. As Ms Pulford said in her speech earlier, we can always do more to ensure access to services. Something that Ms Crozier raised in her speech which is of great concern is the clinic in the east, in Maroondah, that was shut down due to the pandemic. I urge the government to make sure that that particular clinic is up and operational as soon as possible.

I did do a little bit of research and backgrounding looking into access, and as of today there are 175 places in Victoria offering medical abortion and 24 offering surgical abortion. I do agree with Dr Ratnam that we can definitely do more in regional areas for women to access these services. Again, we can always do more. Of these 175 places in Victoria offering medical abortion and 24 offering surgical abortion, some do require GP referral for surgical abortion and others do not, and you can access these services at places including family planning clinics, fertility control clinics, women’s clinics, youth health hubs, private specialists, regular GP clinics and some hospitals. Not all publicly funded hospitals offer these services as it stands. I also checked, and the women’s clinic at St Albans and the other one in Beaconsfield do not require a woman to see a doctor beforehand for a referral and there are appointments available as early as tomorrow. Therefore it is not necessarily difficult to access a service if you do require one, notwithstanding that if you are in a regional area you would have to travel.

Abortion is an essential procedure. Although it is a decision that I personally believe is traumatic and confronting, a 2021 study found that seven in 10 Australian adults support access to abortion. Studies also show that rates of surgical abortion have reduced since medical abortion medication joined the PBS. Abortion is not something that should be used in place of contraception or family planning, but it is an essential component of our health system. We must enshrine access to safe, legal abortions that occur out of common sense rather than being a common occurrence.

I have spoken to a number of stakeholders, and I also spoke to somebody who works at a termination clinic. From the conversation something came out that was of great concern to me about why particular women were accessing these services. They informed me, based on the conversations that they were having with the women coming through, that especially post pandemic these women were subject to family violence, so this is another issue that comes out of that. Women are having terminations—they may be married or in long-term relationships, but they do not want to bring a child into the world because of the family violence they are experiencing. This is an issue that I think we should look at separate to this debate. Family violence is clearly a huge issue, and the thought that women have no choice but to go for an abortion because they are subject to family violence is just horrific. It should not occur.

I also want to share a personal story that I have about the service that I received at Mercy hospital. When I was 22 weeks pregnant with my first child I had a placental abruption, and I thought I was going to die and I was going to lose my baby. I went to the Angliss Hospital—I was rushed there by ambulance—and they did not have the facilities to care for me or my 22-week-old baby, so I went to the Mercy. The care that they provided was amazing, but they did say to me—I had very frank discussions—that if I did not stop bleeding, they would have to deliver the baby. I would be hooked up to syntocinon and the baby would not survive at 22 weeks. Luckily for me—I did lie on my back for about six weeks at the hospital and the bleeding did subside—I did not have to go through that. The care that they provided was absolutely amazing. I just want to thank the Mercy hospital for the care they provided me and my son Dylan. I ended up going to term. It was fantastic service.

It is paramount that we do all we can to enshrine women’s rights in strong legislation, and we have that legislation currently in Victoria. There are changes on the horizon, and soon some of these seats may very well be filled by representatives who do not believe in sensible freedoms for every individual. It is dangerous to assume that our abortion laws will never change and that there will not be other pushes for legislative change that creates further harm. We must ensure that women’s rights to abortion and reproductive services are protected in legislation, and I stand here today, whilst I still have a voice in this chamber, and I firmly uphold these rights.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (11:25): I rise to speak on the Health Legislation Amendment (Conscientious Objection) Bill 2022. When I first read the bill’s title I thought that we were going to be talking about conscientious objections in the way of all medical procedures, such as with vaccines, where we used to be able to have a conscientious objection. When I first read the title I thought, ‘Conscientious objection? Health? Wonderful!’, because everybody in the whole community at any time should actually make their own health choices. They should be able to conscientiously object to whatever is being offered to them and be able to say, ‘No, I have my own autonomy. I make my own choices—my body, my choice—and I have the freedom to choose’. We have obviously had a lot of this debate, the conscientious objection debate, with the mandating that the state government has gone down the path of. I have always said I am very much pro-choice when it comes to anybody’s medical procedures. I do not believe in mandates, and I do not believe anything should be forced onto you medically. You should be given those decisions to decide for yourself.

For me it has been really interesting, because I have had conversations with Ms Patten about this, one being that—I think I have shared my personal journey—in the western suburbs there has never been anywhere that you can actually get a surgical termination. The most vulnerable communities, like those in regional Victoria, really lack access to that service, which should be available across the state. There are many reasons why people have to have a surgical termination. Most of the time it is not their choice. They have got an ectopic pregnancy or there is something else, or they are the most vulnerable—they really are struggling, as was said earlier, with domestic violence or they do not have the means—and they make really hard choices when they go down that path.

I myself have never been a supporter of late-term abortions. There is a time, and you know if you skip a period—four weeks—that you have to speak to your doctor. Making it the shortest time frame that you can, I think, is the most un-cruel thing that you can possibly do when a woman has to make those choices. I am not a supporter of late-term abortions. When a fetus is viable I believe the doctors and nurses at that particular time absolutely have to do everything in their power to be able to look after that baby and actually look at fostering and all of those other options. I really struggle.

But for me, there are aspects of what Ms Patten is wanting to achieve in this that I struggle with, because I am not a ‘must’ provider in the way of service. I think ‘should’ and ‘could’ and ‘possible’ are words that should be used. For me, I think there are a lot of flaws. When you become pregnant you normally choose an obstetric doctor, and they normally use certain hospitals. I think it is really at that time that those doctors need to say to you, ‘Look, if you’re booked in for a C-section or you’re booked in for your pregnancy, I work at the Mercy hospital, and these are the services that I will not be able to provide for you once we get there’.

My own journey is that in my fifth pregnancy, with my son, my water broke. I was booked in to the Mercy hospital with the doctor that I chose from Footscray, and my water broke four weeks early. I was going through domestic violence, and I think that is probably one of the reasons my water broke early. My water broke early that night. I thought, ‘I’ve done this four times before; I’m just going to wait for the contractions to start. I’ll get the kids sorted’, because I was all by myself at that time. ‘I’ll wake up in the morning. I’ll get the kids to my friends and to my family and then I’ll go to the Mercy hospital in Werribee and we’ll see what happens’. But that night I had no contractions. I continued to have my water breaking. I got my children to where they needed to be. I had McDonald’s on the way there, thinking that somehow when I got they would put me on a drip, my contractions would occur and I would have my son. But what occurred was when I walked in there the nurses said, ‘Where have you been? We’ve been waiting for you all night. Put down your bag. This is your room. The doctor is waiting, and you’re going to have an emergency caesarean. Where is your partner?’. I did not want to explain that I was going through domestic violence, and I had just been told that I was going to have an emergency caesarean. In a bit of a panic I rang up my ex-partner and said to him, ‘I’m about to walk in to have an emergency caesarean, if you want to come and be part of this’.

Just before I went in there, I said to the doctor, ‘You know what? This is my fifth child. I would really like you to tie my tubes’. He said to me, ‘Unfortunately the Mercy hospital is a Catholic hospital and I cannot do that’. I said, ‘But you’re going to open me up. This is my fifth child. I am a Catholic. I’ve given five children; I’m a good Catholic. I’m 39. I’m old. This is going to be my third caesarean. I’ve had two VBACs’—I will not explain what that is—‘I’ve had two natural births and this will be my third caesarean. My sons made me have emergency caesareans, but I need my tubes tied’. He said, ‘No. Obviously this emergency caesarean will go ahead, and we’ll sit you up and then you probably can go to another hospital’. I just thought, ‘This is ridiculous, really ridiculous’. My abusive partner turned up. With all the drugs they gave me, I let him come back home with me. Ten months later he abused me again. Then I had five children, one a baby.

These are real things that happen to real people. You would not believe that in the turn of events—a single mother going through domestic violence—I became mayor. I waited 16 years for that. But I was a single mother with five children, going through domestic violence, and I would have loved at that time to have my tubes tied. These are real things that happen to all of us, and we need to have those choices.

Is this amendment that Ms Patten is trying to achieve perfect? I do not think it is in some ways. I do not want to pick on the church. I believe they should just have a conscientious choice. If I explained my situation to that doctor, he should have gone, ‘Oh, well, that’s fine. I get it. I get, as a good Catholic, that this is why you’re doing what you’re doing’. The church supports—supports, supports, supports—birth control, but birth control is not 100 per cent perfect, and there are good Catholics out there that are put into this position all the time. It torments a lot of women when they have to make those very hard choices. For me, I find it really difficult today to make a decision on this, because I absolutely support Ms Patten’s intent. I support what she wants to achieve.

I believe that this government could do more in the western suburbs for these services, for planned parenthood. There are still children coming into the city for planned parenthood from the western suburbs—are you kidding me?—and regional Victoria. Many women will tell you all of these things that occur. Why can’t they get a particular service in their locality if they go to that particular hospital at that particular time? I do not understand why the western suburbs have been treated the way that they have for so many years in the way of having better health services. Members of the opposition have said, ‘Why didn’t these doctors speak out?’. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority has a big question to answer: why do all these doctors and nurses, in this time, in 2022, feel that they cannot speak freely on behalf of their patients and make those proper decisions and that they are always under the threat of having their licences taken away from them and being threatened that they are going to be sacked? It is not right; it is absolutely not right. I will leave my contribution there because I know there are many others that probably want to speak to this bill.

Mr ATKINSON (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:37): I will be fairly brief because I think that this debate has covered a lot of important ground. I particularly refer to Ms Crozier’s and Cathrine Burnett-Wake’s contributions as significant contributions in the context of this debate. I simply want to make one simple point that has not been made in the context of this debate today, and that is that there is a right to conscientious objection that should be recognised and should be protected in all areas of our democratic society. I understand the arguments that have been put by those organisations, the three hospitals in particular, and indeed doctors and other medical practitioners who believe that they have a right to conscientious objection. However, there is the right of the patient to have access to the services that they believe they require and the treatments that they believe they require.

I have been particularly concerned throughout the last couple of years with the COVID situation about the explosion of information on the internet—some of it absolutely crazy stuff, ridiculous material, some of it valid. Some of the treatments that our scientific agencies were not prepared to embrace here in Australia seem to have pretty good track records overseas. But the point is the way that COVID response was managed meant that there was an opportunity for all sorts of people to make all sorts of claims on the internet which confused people who were seeking genuine information. Dr Google is not the best place to go when you are looking for medical or scientific information.

We also have the anti-vaxxers, and we saw the protest this past week by people who are adamant that vaccinations ought to not be mandated, that we should not have to have vaccinations. And, yes, there is some variance amongst those people as to what might be acceptable in terms of some of those vaccinations and what is not acceptable in terms of others. Again, I can understand that people can make their own choice.

What I think we probably need is to have some sort of situation or mechanism that comes into place where a patient goes to a doctor or medical practitioner who has a personal view against vaccinations or a particular vaccination or has a personal view against providing abortion or the right to access euthanasia services—where they have a personal view on those matters—or indeed even in terms of treatments for cancer and so forth, because there are also some doctors who have been right through medical practice who seem to have some fairly interesting views that are out of kilter with what science generally says and certainly what the medical industry, if you like, says. I think there needs to be a requirement that those doctors or those institutions that are not prepared to provide certain services or that are looking at providing treatments that are not part of the AMA’s position supply, as part of the consultation with patients, the view of the AMA or other similar body on the recognised position on particular treatments or services. And then, sure, they can make their own comments as well to that patient, but at least there is informed consent and the rights of that patient are upheld to a greater extent than I think they are at this point in time. I will not be supporting the legislation today.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (11:42): I apologise; it is just the way of Wednesday and giving everybody an opportunity to have their full time. Pursuant to standing order 12.25, I move:

That the question be now put.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Gepp): Pursuant to standing order 12.25, Ms Patten has sought to move for the closure of debate. Standing order 12.25(2) requires that six other members must rise in their places to support the motion. I ask those members who wish to do so to now rise in their places to indicate their support.

Required number of members having risen:

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Gepp): There being at least six members who support the closure motion, I will put the question forthwith without amendment or debate.

Bells rung.

Members interjecting.

Mr Finn: On a point of order, President, there seems to be some confusion as to what we are voting on in this particular division. I would ask you to clarify for the benefit of all members exactly what the question is.

The PRESIDENT: I heard through the interjections that there is a misunderstanding. The first vote is Ms Patten’s closure motion, and that is what is being voted on now. If that vote succeeds, it means the debate is finished and we go and put the second-reading motion. The question is:

That the question be now put.

House divided on motion:

Motion agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: The question is:

That the bill be now read a second time.

House divided on motion:

Motion negatived.