Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a range of remarks that I want to make about the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. I want to begin by stating that my position on the bill is well known: I have not hidden my strong support for it, just as I did not hide my support for its predecessor, the Research Involving Embryos and Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002. I congratulate Senator Kay Patterson for preparing this bill and for having it pass the Senate. Without prejudging the vote in this House, I personally hope for and strongly anticipate its passage through this chamber and subsequently into law.

I was going to begin with something of a critique of the opportunities and health advantages that are sought to be engaged through the processes that this bill would seek to regulate, but I think I will leave that aside for the time being and come to something that I think is also quite significant. I want to begin by discussing the very process of somatic cell nuclear transfer that has been picked over and discussed by members and in the general community at quite some length since this bill was first countenanced.

I say quite clearly that there is a big difference between an embryo formed by the joining of a human egg and a human sperm and an empty human egg such as those to be used in the SCNT research process. Empty eggs such as these are ejected from the bodies of women every month and these ejected eggs are in no way part of the human life cycle. SCNT involves the removal of the nucleus of an empty egg and its replacement with human DNA from another source. The egg is denucleated and material added to spark the creation of stem cells that bear the imprint of the added material. This empty egg is not an embryo in the sense that ideologues and some of those with an axe to grind in this debate would have you think. It is not implanted in a human uterus and at no time is it part of the human life cycle.

Over the years there have been various pieces of legislation in parliaments, federal and state, governing practices that do impact on human embryos, even on foetuses and on babies. Of course, the health impacts and the types of legislation that I discuss do have wide ramifications and are widely discussed and will remain a sore point for people with a particular view in our community. These laws attract controversy, and not without good reason. However, this bill and the therapies and research it controls do not enliven the same degree of intervention and should not enliven the same degree of reactive controversy.

I am a strong advocate of this bill because I recognise, and from time to time I have reason to mix with, people who are fighting so strongly for a cure to serious debilitating illnesses. When they say to me and to my colleagues, ‘We want you to work to help us find a cure,’ they do not say that just as a debating point; they say it, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, with a tear in their eye. They say it because they are committed to relieving sickness and illness in our community. I want to always have it said about me that I had that attitude as well.

I do not accept that it is reasonable that I should appeal to part of a constituency to be popular or for some other particular reason by taking a certain ideological viewpoint and that I should set that pursuit aside and not be genuine in my efforts to find the funding, to give the support, to make it happen for those people who are suffering things like MS or motor neurone disease or diabetes. I suppose it comes from the fact that I am myself a sufferer of diabetes type 1, and this has often been discussed by me and by others about me.

In the lead-up to this bill coming before the House, I have spoken publicly on this topic. Recently the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation staged in the parliament the very successful Kids in the House event, where young sufferers of type 1 diabetes, including Phoenix Weaver and Sean Binns from the electorate of Blair, came all the way to Canberra with their parents and carers to remind us of their suffering and ask that we rededicate ourselves to the search for a cure. As part of the Kids in the House activities, the JDRF hosted a dinner in the Mural Hall, where I heard leading researchers from all over the world saying how close we are to finding that elusive cure to diabetes type 1. At present the possibility of a cure seems so close you can almost taste it. In fact, there are several avenues of inquiry all holding out real prospects that the serious consequences of diabetes, such as those I have described in my speech on the 2002 bill, will soon become a thing of the past—although how soon is the big question.

Among those options for research, the most prospective and most realistic opportunities for an effective and lasting cure are those that involve the processes we are discussing here today—embryonic stem cell therapy and somatic cell nuclear transfer. The same researchers that have enlivened such hope in the large community of 140,000 type 1 diabetics in Australia as well as in their parents and loved ones are telling us that our support for this bill will aid the process. They are saying it very clearly. The cure for diabetes may come through these techniques and therapies or it may come from another source. But we do not have the luxury of divine sight to know in advance that we can afford to blithely rule out these practices.

I have heard the words of fellow members that claim that stem cells from adult sources or from umbilical cords or placentas are all we need to pursue cures such as the one we are so desperately in need of in the case of diabetes type 1. But these are my colleagues, not scientists. Sometimes they quote a scientist in their cause, but in every case there comes that age-old whiff of ideology or self-interest that rings so familiar from the 2002 debate.

The scientists I heard addressing the JDRF dinner were those leading the campaign that funds research of all types. They support research into the development of insulin pumps—not like the one I wear today, but pumps that would recreate artificially the entire process that controls the release of insulin into the body automatically. That would be a huge step forward, and these are options being supported strongly by the JDRF. But that does not stop JDRF scientists supporting the research options that are presented as a result of embryonic stem cell therapy and SCNT.

So I hear what they say. Their advice is good and unequivocal. It comes from a source that is authoritative and untainted by dogmatic ideology. There is no conflict of interest—which is the fundamental problem: the credibility gap faced by scientists who are themselves engaged in alternative research.

These are the scientists, the ones engaged in alternative research, who hear the words of the opponents of this bill and know that its defeat would force their research competitors to leave the country. The rigorous competitive challenge among Australian researchers for funding to pursue cures to major illnesses like diabetes, MS or MND would be cut in half. It would be slanted and stunted as a result.

Scientists who genuinely believe that SCNT and embryonic stem cell therapies offer the key to these vital cures will just have to relocate their research elsewhere. Opponents of this bill have to face up to the fact that, through their actions, they may well delay these cures. They have to face up to the fact that if they succeed in bringing this part of our research to a halt they may derail the entire Australian effort in the very research which may one day provide the cure or cures and many other things.

I speak about cures and about diseases, but these therapies offer the potential for other therapeutic benefits that are not so readily discussed and, in some cases, understood. Members would be familiar with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, which collects blood for transfusions across Australia. To this end, more than 1.1 million donations of blood are collected from Australians every year. This is a wonderful service which creates life-giving opportunities for Australians who have been in car accidents and who are undergoing operations and other medical procedures every day of the week. But we know that that service is not infallible. Sadly, many Australians with diseases such as HIV-AIDS contracted through tainted blood are testament to this fact. Sadly, also, today the donation system groans under the weight of demands on its services and the restrictions that reduce the number of available donors to protect the health of the recipients of that blood. Once again, there is the prospect of hope that, through embryonic stem cell research and SCNT, we can develop a productive source of blood to meet this growing need into the future without the kinds of logistical and health-endangering problems that come through the current practice of sourcing blood through donations exclusively.

Blood donated through the existing system is used as follows: 30 per cent to cancer patients, 15 per cent to heart disease patients, 15 per cent to stomach and bowel disease patients, 12 per cent to burns victims, 12 per cent to accident victims, six per cent to liver and kidney disease patients, five per cent to haemophiliacs and five per cent to babies and pregnant women. This is a core part of our health system that could be directly affected by this kind of material, and you do not have to be particularly engaged in the scientific process to see the magnificent opportunities that that raises.

Without going any further, I strongly endorse the bill and encourage all my colleagues to do likewise.

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