The Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 1973 (the Act) imposes a duty upon parents to complete a form of information and send it to the Registry within one month of the birth of a child. In respect of an ex-nuptial child this statutory obligation extends only to the mother. The father of an ex-nuptial child may take part in the notification of birth, but need not.

On registration of a birth, the Act requires information to be furnished on the child's name, sex, parentage, and date and place of birth. The Act then gives the Principal Registrar a discretion to seek and record such other particulars as he sees fit. At present it is the practice of the Registry to require further particulars of the following:

• the surname of the child;
• the occupation, age and place of birth of the father;
• the age, place of birth and general area of residence (municipality or shire) of the mother;
• if married, the date and place of marriage of the parents;
• the names and ages of other children of the present marriage, including any child who is deceased.

It is to be noted that while the Registry requires notification of the father's occupation, it requires no equivalent information about the mother. As a result of complaints received by the Anti-Discrimination Board, the Registry altered its practice in 1981 to provide an option to have the mother's occupation recorded. If the option is exercised, the information will appear on the register in brackets after the mother's forenames. The result is still discriminatory in that occupational information is required of the father (and is listed separately) but not of the mother.

The Commission is of the opinion that the practice of requiring occupational information about one parent and not the other is out-dated. We see no reason why such discrimination should continue between men and women. The Commission believes that recordings of parental occupations can be both useful and interesting. Such records can assist in establishing the identity of a person, or in tracing someone who has a common name. Family historians will also find the information interesting. Therefore, the Commission proposes tentatively that the supply of information with respect to a mother's occupation should be mandatory.

The Commission has also received submissions on the amount of information to be included on the register. Some express satisfaction with the detailed information presently required and some go further and suggest extension of current requirements to record facts such as ethnic background. In contrast are the comments received that the amount of information now required constitutes an unnecessary intrusion by the state into the private lives of individuals. Although all the information recorded may be of interest or use to both government and the individual this, of itself, may not be sufficient justification for the invasion of privacy involved. The Commission seeks comment on the amount of information which should be entered on the register, but for the time being, we are of the view that there should be no change in the amount of information notified, apart from the addition of a statement of the mother's occupation.