Dear Crikey,

This
is a plea for credit where credit’s due. It is worth pointing out that
the Democrats were the only party to oppose the ban of RU-486 in 1996
at the end of Labor’s last term. (The two Greens split, with Christobel
Chamarette voting for the ban.)

My amendment to a TGA
reversing the Harradine-inspired ban has been ready to go for some time
and the opportunity to put it will come up soon with two bills on the
list to be dealt with by end year. I also wrote the attached op-ed
piece last month (no-one interested in publishing it) and made a speech
in the Senate a few weeks ago on the subject of the ban affecting other
uses.

Caroline da Costa’s MJA piece was a very welcome
watershed that allowed others to show their hands, but I’ve been
nudging this along for a while through the Parliamentary Population
& Development Group and questions to the minister.

Cheers
Lyn Allison

CRIKEY: Well,
that’s the bummer about being a Democrat. You’d have thought they might
have realised it by now: ideas are a good thing, but it takes an MP or
senator in the Government of the day to get the ball on the field.
Hence our report on Friday giving credit where credit’s due – to the
force behind the Government’s policy rethink, Liberal MP Sharman Stone,
the parliamentary secretary for Finance. Still, anyone who’d like a
copy of the senator’s unpublished op-ed piece should email her: Senator.Allison@aph.gov.au