Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial responsibility for approval of RU486) Bill 2005, which is designed to shift the approval process for importation of RU486 from the Commonwealth minister for health to the Therapeutic Goods Administration. I take this opportunity to thank the many hundreds of people on both sides of this debate who contacted my office through various means to calmly and in an articulate way outline their views on this important matter before us tonight. I believe the TGA is the appropriate authority to assess and evaluate all of the risk posed by therapeutic goods and drugs and for implementing appropriate strategies designed to minimise any risk involved in the use of this particular substance. I therefore will be supporting this bill and strenuously opposing the amendments.

It was inevitable that this debate would be focused around the issue of termination of pregnancy. Like all Australians, I find the number of terminations performed in Australia—reported by informed and accurate sources to be in the order of around 70,000 per year—unacceptable and simply astounding in this day and age. There has been speculation that this figure is much higher, mainly by those who choose to deliberately distort the issue to attempt to dishonestly manipulate the outcome of this debate. Whatever the true figure is, it is much too high. I can only imagine the frightening and tragic circumstances women who are forced to contemplate having a pregnancy terminated must find themselves in. But until we are successfully implementing appropriate measures like better education on family planning and appropriate counselling services, especially in rural and regional Australia, I suspect there will be no reduction in these appalling figures.

It is interesting to note that the Senate committee inquiring into this particular issue could find no evidence to suggest that there would be an increase in the number of terminations if the administration of RU486 were to be placed with the Therapeutic Goods Administration. We have for some time allowed the TGA to preside over a wide range of drugs and therapeutic goods and services that require extreme caution in administration, and I have every confidence in that organisation’s jurisdiction over RU486.

We are fortunate to have in this country one of the best health systems in the world. Our public and private hospitals—although often experiencing difficulties—are the envy of other countries throughout the world, although it is still very difficult for people from remote areas to access appropriate health care. We have a first-class system of checks and balances regarding the approval of various drugs and medications. RU486 will be administered under the tightest possible scrutiny involving a range of agencies with highly qualified health professionals. I have every confidence in our GPs and medical professionals to make appropriate decisions in the use of this drug, based on individual cases and taking into account ethical as well as medical factors.

I know that many people will be disappointed with my decision to support this bill, and I sincerely regret that, but I certainly make no apologies for it. While this bill is predominately about who or what person or organisation administers this drug, I cannot in all conscience, as a male member of this House, use my vote to restrict, limit or deny women access to an appropriate treatment or drug for any given set of circumstances. I have always believed that the matter of a termination of pregnancy should strictly be between a woman, those close to her and her doctor.

This bill is much more than just the issue previously mentioned; it goes to the important matter of who or what organisation is best suited to administer RU486. I am convinced that the Therapeutic Goods Administration is indeed the appropriate body to administer this drug rather than the minister for health. I have come to that view regardless of who is minister for health or who is likely to become minister for health in the future.

This debate, like all debates where a conscience vote is required, has aroused strong feelings from the Australian people on both sides of the argument. Indeed, politics can generate great passion and can bring out emotions more often seen in the outer at a football grand final. Often this very forum of federal parliament can itself look and sound more like a gladiatorial coliseum than a dignified chamber where the nation’s wellbeing is being debated. That is the nature of this chamber, and I, along with other MPs, have contributed, rightly or wrongly, to that situation. It has often been called a hothouse. This is just one of the reasons that I believe—and, I believe, that the majority of my colleagues believe—that this political forum is not where we should be debating the availability of the drug RU486. It should be a matter for thoughtful debate and for consideration of matters of science and medicine by qualified health professionals.

When politicians become embroiled in issues such as this, we are inundated with a vast range of extreme, colourful and sometimes frighteningly rude messages from around the nation. Some of it I would have to classify as hate mail. I make no complaint about this. It is simply part of the process of attempting to influence the outcome of a given situation. The age of instant electronic communications puts legislators right at the coalface whenever a contentious issue is raised anywhere in Australia. And because of the email address system MPs have no way of knowing if it is genuinely from someone from his or her area or part of an orchestrated national barrage.

I have received—no doubt along with all MPs—hundreds of emails, faxes and phone calls from people from all over Australia, most containing powerful arguments from both sides of this debate. Many I found to be disgusting and abusive right through to patronising and arrogant—again, from both sides of this debate. Having no way of knowing that one particular email—which was from Dr David Stratton in my electorate—was actually from one of my constituents and that it was a genuine, if not patronising, attempt to lobby on an important issue, I made a serious mistake in giving an unnecessarily brutal response. Once I became aware that he was a resident of my electorate and it was a genuine attempt to communicate his views, I contacted him by telephone. After a short conversation, I realised that I had been wrong in my interpretation of his comments and stated that I sincerely regretted responding in the manner in which I had. He said that he would prefer an apology. I then provided a verbal apology—and, again, I unreservedly apologise to Dr David Stratton. Ironically, he and I agree on the RU486 issue.

Since I announced my support for this particular bill, my office has been a focal point for a lot of this bludgeoning communication. We try to reply to as much of it as we can. Sometimes our judgment can be skewed by both the volume of this material and its hectoring nature, with its creative use of short, sharp slang. I believe that the sometimes extreme screeching nature of the communication now washing over MPs and staff from coast to coast is clear evidence of the need to take the RU486 decision out of the political arena. Loud is not the same as right; in politics, however, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference. For the reasons I have just mentioned, I will be supporting this bill and vigorously opposing the amendments.

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