Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect this is a speech which will make few people happy. Those who will be voting against will be disappointed with the conclusions I have reached, and those who are happy with the way I intend to vote will no doubt be disappointed with my reasons. I want to talk about the debate and discussions which have surrounded the lead-up to this bill—the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005I want to talk about what this bill is not about and, finally, I want to talk about the legislation that is before us.

This is the fourth time I have been asked to exercise a conscience vote in a parliamentary debate. The previous three were in the New South Wales parliament. In a conscience vote, I believe deciding how to vote should be made entirely on the basis of the bill which is before us and the consequences it will have if made law. I had hoped to commence this speech in the same way I have opened other speeches on conscience vote issues, by noting and being grateful for the decency with which other members of parliament had conducted themselves in this debate. But I cannot. Too many people have been maligned by antireligious comments—some have been specifically anti-Catholic, some more generally anti-Christian and some more recently anti-Muslim. At least Senator Nettle bothered to apologise for any offence she caused to Catholics and high Anglicans.

I do believe we live in the best country in the world and, for all the differences around this country, we have to wake up every morning and still live together, still get along and still make a great society work. Every day we see people on all sides of the parliament show leadership in trying to keep everything cohesive. I say to both the member for Hughes and Senator Nettle that they have hurt people deeply and made problems worse. At the end of this debate I will be voting the same way as the member for Hughes, but at least it will be for very different reasons. My reasons are about the bill.

I do not believe we are being asked in this vote to approve the use of RU486. Even if this bill is defeated—which appears highly unlikely—health ministers change. I believe RU486 will probably be approved by a health minister in the next few years, even under the current rules. If the last cabinet reshuffle had been more extensive, there may well have been a minister already willing to approve it. The fact that the previous health minister voted in the Senate in favour of this bill only reinforces this point.

Most of the correspondence I have received deals with the merits or otherwise of RU486. I find it hard to base my decision on this bill on those arguments when I honestly believe the drug is going to come into use whether or not this bill is passed. I do not believe we are being asked to adjudicate the abortion debate, which will always be addressed by state laws. I do not believe we are being asked to vote on a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health and Ageing. I do not believe we are being asked to choose between the health minister and the Therapeutic Goods Administration. The bill asks us to choose between a process where both the health minister and the TGA have a role and a proposal where the TGA would act alone.

When most drugs are going through an approval process there is no community debate which accompanies their consideration. RU486 is one of the rare occasions where such a debate exists. In the years to come there will be a number of drugs on which there will certainly be community debate. The member for Bowman touched on some of these. I suspect the attitudes of members of parliament on some of these drugs will be wildly different to the way they are lining up this week.

We have a fairly simple choice: either we have a process that takes into account that community debate or we do not. It is not an unreasonable position to say that the only issues to be considered are the scientific ones. If that is the conclusion you reach, then you would keep members of parliament a long way away from the deliberations; you would leave it to the expert bodies alone. I reach a different conclusion. I believe we are better off with a mechanism that considers community debate. That consideration should be performed by people who are accountable or, at least with this government, answerable to the public. The mechanisms by which you do that will always be imperfect. I know only too well from my own portfolio area that the existence of ministerial discretion does not mean it will be used all that well, but I do not find myself arguing that therefore ministerial discretion should go.

There are two amendments under discussion which would allow a different process, which would end in parliament voting on a disallowable instrument. There are limits to the merit of turning the debate back to us, but the alternative to those mechanisms is that we are left with a policy decision that says the community debate will be ignored; that the scientific argument will be all that is heard. I am not convinced about the relative merits of the various amendments which are under discussion, and I am concerned about one of them being a second reading amendment. I will be following the debate closely, but at this stage the amendment in the name of the member for Bowman seems to make the most sense to me. It has the added benefit of focusing the debate on the principle of any drug where there is significant community debate rather than simply focusing on RU486.

Most drugs will be non-controversial, and the main arguments will relate to the expense of placing them on the PBS. Increasingly, though, there will be significant community dissent over issues that have nothing to do with the scientific merits of a drug. It is certainly not the TGA’s job to consider that community discussion, but I do believe it is ours. That is why I intend to oppose the private member’s bill before us.

I am not naive about this. I know that most people will not read this speech and will simply presume from a voting list what my reasons were. Some of those who do hear or read this speech will think that I have not disclosed my real reasons and will revert to the curious concept that anyone with religious faith loses their intellect in the process. I can only call it as I see it. I do not believe I am voting about whether to allow RU486, because I believe it will probably become available under any of the four systems under discussion.

While my faith does form part of my own philosophical approach, I find it to be distinctly unhelpful in this case. I believe we are voting on the process, and I have never heard of the parable of the minister and the expert panel. I am conscious as a member of Labor’s frontbench that these views are very much my personal views. The party’s position has been articulated by the shadow minister for health, and we have the freedom to vote however we want. I have refrained from commenting on this issue outside of the parliament, and that will not change.

We have a piece of legislation before us which I believe, unless it is heavily amended, will make the current, imperfect system worse. In a conscience vote you have to call it as you see it. I cannot support this bill.

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