Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

Today I wish to speak to the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. I think people should be focusing on the words of the bill. The title of the bill specifically describes what it is all about. In speaking to this bill could I, firstly, commend Senator Kay Patterson and Mal Washer, the member for Moore, on the work they have done to bring this bill to the House, and also the Prime Minister and other party leaders who have provided all members of parliament with a conscience vote on this particular issue.

This bill came about following the Lockhart review, which was required to take place after the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002—which was passed by the parliament—called for a review after a period of time. The Lockhart review was chaired by Justice John Lockhart. I should also point out who else was on that review panel that looked at this matter in some detail and put forward fairly detailed recommendations. The other members of that review team—besides Justice Lockhart, who was a former justice of the Federal Court—were Associate Professor Ian Kerridge, a clinical ethicist; Professor Barry Marshall, a specialist gastroenterologist and community advocate; Associate Professor Pamela McCombe, a clinical neurologist; Professor Peter Schofield, a neuroscientist; and Professor Loane Skene, a lawyer and ethicist. So a very eminent panel—obviously people with very high qualifications: medical, professional, legal and ethical—made up that Lockhart review.

In speaking to this bill, I also acknowledge the correspondence that came to my office from constituents, by email, telephone and mail et cetera.  These are people in the community who hold very strong and differing views on this matter. It is not surprising. I am sure other members of parliament have experienced exactly the same situation. When the parliament is going to legislate on many things, you have representations from the community and, ultimately, as a member of parliament, you decide on how you will vote on any piece of legislation. Particularly in these sorts of situations where members are being given a conscience vote, they do very much take into account all of the views of their constituents and ultimately have to make a decision.

In contacting me, many of the people who are opposed to this legislation have referred to human cloning. They have tended to say: ‘Please don’t pass this legislation, because we are opposed to human cloning.’ I agree with them; I am as well. This bill prohibits human cloning for reproduction, as did the bill in 2002. The bill is highly technical and it is difficult for people to understand what the bill is all about. So I will describe in laymen’s terms what aspects will be allowed if the bill is approved.

When the word ‘cloning’ is used, people tend to think it must relate to humans, but it does not. Therapeutic cloning involves extracting the nucleus from a somatic cell, for example, a mature cell such as a skin cell that is neither an egg nor sperm, and placing it in an unfertilised egg—and I emphasise ‘unfertilised’—that has had its own nucleus removed. The egg is stimulated to develop to the blastocyst embryonic stage of some 50 to 250 cells. Stem cells are then obtained from culturing cells from the inner mass of that blastocyst. These stem cells could then be used to repair or, perhaps in the future, create individual human organs. In making that somatic cell, you will not be allowed to develop it beyond 14 days.

I suppose this is the area where people have differing views. I do not see that as creating a human being to then destroy, as some people do. As I said, it is an unfertilised egg, as opposed to a human life, that is used and then stimulated by, say, somebody’s skin cell to form that human tissue. In that respect, I cannot accept the argument that you are creating a human life to destroy. You are creating human tissue but for good medical purposes and, hopefully, curing a number of diseases and other disabilities that currently there is no cure for.

Others argue that we do not need to do this because we already can do a lot of this work with adult stem cells. Adult stem cells, which are currently being taken from discarded embryos from the IVF program, certainly have their role. Some great research is being done in using adult stem cells and that research should continue. We are not talking about competing with that; we are talking, from a research point of view, about adding to the opportunities, via this bill.

So you are taking an unfertilised egg and you are stimulating it with a skin cell to form that sort of blastocyst that is ultimately used to look at how you might repair particular organs that might be diseased in some way, or potentially grow them. The big advantage of being able to use embryonic stem cells is that you are ultimately working with the same DNA as that of the person you are trying to cure. Some of this work is being done with adult stem cells, but if it is developed to the point of repairing an organ of an individual then the DNA is going to be different because it has not come from that individual. Therefore you run the risk of rejection or of a person having to go through quite long periods of time on antirejection drugs, which adds complications. Whereas in this case, if you are taking a skin cell from an individual—when you are ultimately looking at repairing, say, one of their organs or adding cells to one of their organs to overcome a particular disease—then you are dealing with their DNA. So you are taking away that prospect of rejection. It is potentially a huge advantage for the scientists to be able to work in that way.

I have great confidence in our scientists and the ethics of our scientists. My training comes from a scientific background so I guess I have great confidence in science generally. I am not trained in the medical area, but my professional training is in science related areas. So I feel strongly that our scientists can be given these extra opportunities without their being abused and that the ethics of our scientists are such that we will not see certain activities. In fact the legislation is very specific about prohibiting certain activities, but I am confident that our scientists would not be heading down any of those tracks anyway. There are very strong safeguards within the legislation to prevent many of the things that some people are concerned will occur if this legislation is passed. As I think the member for Hotham before me said, the legislation is very strong—it is perhaps even stronger than the 2002 bill that was passed in this House—with respect to safeguards.

Finally, I think all of us at some time in our lives are touched by circumstances where loved ones are affected by particular diseases or disabilities and you would really love to find a way that you could help them. In some respects, when looking at legislation like this you should not allow specific personal experiences to totally override your views—you need to look at all sides of the argument; and I think I have done that in this respect. However, your personal experiences are something that you call upon to give you wisdom as well in making these sorts of decisions.

As members in this House well know, I lost my wife last year to cancer. Cancer is one of the areas that one would hope this legislation could have a substantial impact on. I very openly say up-front that I do not for a second believe necessarily that if some of this research had been happening a few years ago then it may have provided a cure for what my late wife went through and passed away from. However, living that experience certainly instilled in me a determination that, as legislators in this Australian parliament, we should do all that we can to give our eminent scientists the greatest opportunity to address some of these issues.

After Kerrie passed away, I went and sat down with her oncologist. I said to him, ‘I’m in the parliament, in the government. Is there something that you would like to tell me that perhaps we could do or we could do better so that hopefully others that might be faced with what Kerrie and I faced over that short five months could have a cure?’ He said a number of things, as you expect from a doctor giving advice to a member of parliament—and I am sure that all members of parliament cop advice from doctors and researchers. One thing that he said to me that really stood out was: ‘I don’t think you should concentrate necessarily on putting resources into specific aspects of cancer research. Put the resources into general research that ultimately can apply to a whole series, in the case of cancer, of different cancers.’

There is funding that goes towards breast cancer research and all sorts of things like that. They are all good. But he was really saying to me: try and do something that can improve research right across the scope of this area, and if you can do that then you have done something extremely positive because it is amazing how different things develop out of that general research into specific areas of cancer cures. I see this bill particularly as a response to that advice from the oncologist because this does cover not only cancer but also a whole series of diseases and disabilities. There are, potentially, opportunities that could go in a number of directions.

For people suffering from these conditions, hope is all they have to keep them going. There are many of those people in my electorate of Eden-Monaro. I was with young children with juvenile diabetes, as many other members of this House were only a couple of weeks ago, when we were raising awareness of the need for further research in that area. A number of young children from my electorate came along that day. Given that solutions to a range of diseases and disabilities could be boosted through this research, I cannot deny the chance of a cure for these people. I commend the bill to the House.

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