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About the bill 

On 20 March 2024, Mr Robbie Katter MP, Member for Traeger, introduced the Termination of Pregnancy (Live Births) Amendment Bill 2024 into the Queensland Parliament and referred it to the Health, Environment and Agriculture Committee for examination. The committee is required to report on its examination of the Bill by 20 September 2024.  

View: Explanatory speech 
View: Bill 
View: Explanatory Notes 
View: Statement of compatibility 

The stated objective of the Bill is to enshrine in legislation the protections for babies born as a result of a termination of pregnancy procedure. The Bill is intended to remove any doubt that babies born in these circumstances are entitled to the same degree of medical care and attention as a baby born in any other way.

The Bill amends the Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 (Act) to:

• insert a new section (section 9A) to apply when a termination results in a live birth
• state that nothing in the Act prevents a ‘relevant person’ for the termination from exercising any duty to provide the person who is born with medical care and treatment that is clinically safe and appropriate to the person’s medical condition
• clarify that the duty owed by a registered health practitioner to provide medical care and treatment to a person born as a result of a termination is no different than the duty owed to provide medical care and treatment to a person born other than as a result of a termination
• define ‘relevant person’ for a termination resulting in a person being born, as a registered health practitioner who performed the termination, and other practitioners, including students, present at the time.

Further information

When published, further information about public proceedings, transcripts, and other documents related to the inquiry can be accessed under the Related Publications tab.

Call for submissions

The committee invites submissions on any aspect of the Bill, from all interested parties.  Guidelines for making a submission to a parliamentary committee are available here: Guide to making a submission. 

Please note:  Submissions containing information (images or text) which graphically describes or depicts a termination of a pregnancy will be redacted. Other content which the committee determines is unsuitable to publish or contains unparliamentary language may also be redacted.

Submitters are encouraged to make a submission to the inquiry through the committee’s online submission portal. 

Click here to make an online submission

The closing date for written submissions is 4pm on Monday, 13 May 2024. 

To be considered by the committee, submissions must include:

• the author’s name
• if the submission is made on behalf of an organisation, the level of approval (e.g. a local branch, executive committee or national organisation), and
• at least two of the following:
• email address
• mailing address, and
• daytime telephone number.

Please ensure your submission meets these requirements.

Your name and submission may be published on the committee’s inquiry webpage, which will mean it can be viewed on the internet. You can request for your name to be withheld from your published submission, or for both your name and your submission to be kept confidential (i.e. not published). Decisions about whether and how submissions are published are at the discretion of the committee.

PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS

The committee held a public briefing on the Bill on Monday, 29 April 2024. 

A public hearing will be held on Monday, 10 June 2024. 

Further information about these proceedings will be published on this page in due course.

Please note - attendees will need to pass through security and must provide government issued photo identification (such as a driver licence) as proof of identification before being allowed entry. Please note that items, including clothing, displaying a political statement are prohibited without permission (see section 11, Parliamentary Service By-law 2023).

Committee’s report

The committee is required to table its report by 20 September 2024. The report will be published here.

Timeline