Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006 was introduced into the Senate by Senator Kay Patterson, debated and subsequently passed in its current form. The bill was then introduced into this House by the member for Moore, and that is the bill we are debating today. The legislation seeks to implement the recommendations of the Lockhart legislative review committee.

Before I go into the composition of the Lockhart review committee, I will state at the outset that my contribution is based on fact backed up by accountability and transparency, and in no way am I seeking to use scare tactics. It is interesting that, in the previous member’s contribution, he did not concentrate on the facts. He did not look to the actual details of what was involved in this legislation; rather, his contribution was emotive. In saying that, I do recognise that this is a very emotive issue. I do recognise that each member of this House comes to this debate with a very different perspective. I do recognise that, in relation to this piece of legislation, members all form their opinions based on their own belief systems and their own value systems.

I think when looking at this legislation and the recommendations of the Lockhart committee it is important to note who those committee members were. The committee was headed by the late Justice John Lockhart AO, a most distinguished jurist and eminent Australian. There were five other members of the committee: two outstanding Australian scientists in the Australian 2005 Nobel Prize winner for medicine, Professor Barry Marshall, and Professor Peter Schofield, a leading Australian neurologist; Associate Professor Pam McCombe; and two of Australia’s leading experts in the fields of ethics and law in Professor Loane Skene, a renowned lawyer and ethicist and an academic who is Pro Vice-Chancellor and a professor of law at the University of Melbourne, and Associate Professor Ian Kerridge, a highly regarded expert in the field of health ethics who is a professor in bioethics and the director of the Centre for Values, Ethics and Law in Medicine at the University of Sydney.

I believe that those members of the committee are people who took into account all the issues. It is important to note the qualifications, background and expertise of those individuals. All members of this House would have to expect that, based on fact and fact alone, the recommendations of the committee are sound. The reason this parliament is debating the legislation does not relate to whether the recommendations are flawed or not; rather, the issue of this debate goes to the moral, personal, philosophical and religious beliefs held by the members of this House. It is for that reason that all members on both sides of this parliament have been given a conscience vote.

I think it is important to highlight the matters that are covered in this piece of legislation and to include details of what embryonic stem cells are. It is important to note that these are cells derived from a five- to six-day-old, immature embryo, more correctly known as a blastocyst. Blastocysts consist of around 150 cells. Embryonic stem cells are considered to be pluripotent: able to create any cell type of the body. At this stage the embryonic stem cells are uncommitted—in other words, they have not yet begun to develop into various tissue organ cells of the body.

With somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, a somatic cell is taken from a person. It can be a number of different cell types—possibly a skin cell or a liver cell, for example. The nucleus of this cell is then removed and placed inside an enucleated egg cell. The egg cell has the ability to reprogram the somatic cell nucleus to create a blastocyst. The blastocyst created from this process is not a typical embryo created from a sperm and an egg. It is known as a nuclear transferred embryo.

From a nuclear transferred embryo, embryonic stem cells can be isolated. These embryonic stem cells are an immunological match to the person. Therefore, the person’s body would not reject these cells as foreign. The cells are also known as disease specific cell lines. The primary reasons that scientists want to do somatic cell nuclear transfers are to get around the issue of rejection and to look at developing cures for particular diseases. The bank of cells exhibits the person’s disease and can be used for the study of the genesis of the disease in the early stage of embryonic development. The cells could be used to test new drugs and treatments and, ultimately, may be used to repair or replace the diseased cells of people suffering from specific diseases. The process is often referred to as therapeutic cloning, but in real terms it is somatic cell nuclear transfer.

This bill is not only about stem cells and therapeutic cloning; it is also about strengthening and improving current legislative regulatory regimes and improving the methods for achieving pregnancy through assisted reproductive technology. So this legislation covers a number of areas. It continues the absolute ban on reproductive cloning to make a whole new human being. So this is not the stuff of science fiction; rather, it is the stuff of scientific research. This is about creating cures for diseases. This bill has in it provisions relating to clinical practice and scientific research involving assisted reproduction and the production of human embryos for research purposes. This should continue, subject to the national legislation. In other words, it is very important that this be legislated on at a national level—not state by state. The bill also continues the ban on the trade and commodification of human eggs, sperms and embryos. I think that is very important. Without this ban there could be exploitation and some of the other practices that are seen in other areas.

The Lockhart review found that an inadvertent effect of the 2002 legislation was to prevent research into improved methods for achieving pregnancy in ART clinics. The review also found that it was inadvertently impeding training and quality assurance activities in these clinics. I have visited some of these clinics and I know the valuable work that they do. I also know that the intent of the 2002 legislation was not to prevent research or to impede training and quality assurance. I believe it is very important that this bill be allowed to pass through the parliament so that those issues can be addressed.

There are a number of provisions in this legislation that relate to licensing arrangements—for example, to ensure that vacancies on the National Health and Medical Research Council licensing committee are promptly filled, and I think that is very important. There are also significant criminal penalties included in the legislation—up to 15 years imprisonment for breaking the law. The bill also requires the minister to report to parliament on the establishment of a national cell bank and a national register of donated ART embryos. This bill will bring into force the most stringent licensing conditions possible, which I think is very important.

This bill will allow two new activities. One is the use of so-called fresh embryos. They are embryos generated in the process of IVF that have been found unsuitable to transplant because of genetic flaws. I believe that research in relation to these embryos should be allowed, because that is where you can come up with cures for diseases. It is very important for the future of many people in Australia who are suffering from diseases that this activity be allowed to move forward. The second new activity is the use of human embryos created by somatic cell nuclear transfer, which I spoke about earlier. That activity is allowed in some countries—for example, the UK, Sweden, Japan and Singapore—and in private clinics in the US.

I think it is important to look at the reasons for going down the path of looking at this type of research. Many people in this place have argued that we should rely wholly and solely on adult stem cells—that adult stem cells are the way of the future—and that there has been no breakthrough so far, so therefore this is bad science. I make the point that science is not something that happens today or will happen tomorrow; rather, there is a process—a research process. It is my understanding that it took 50 years to develop the vaccine to eradicate polio. It has taken 15 years to develop the new vaccine for cervical cancer. We have been trying for many years to find the cure for cancer, but no cure has yet been found. So the fact that there have been no significant outcomes in relation to stem cells since the introduction of the first piece of legislation some three years ago is not an argument for not continuing with stem cell research and it is not an argument for not looking at therapeutic cloning.

To close the door and say these things cannot happen is to remove hope from the lives of many people. It is also putting on hold research within Australia. It is making the treatments that will become available through this research, which will take place overseas, available only to people who have the money to travel overseas. It would also lead to our best and brightest scientists moving from Australia and conducting their research overseas. I see an ethical issue here in depriving our nation of the research that can be done, people having to travel overseas and only those people with money being able to access the treatments and cures that are developed through this research.

Many members who have the opposite view to me, which I respect, argue that this is a slippery slope. I would argue very strongly that the simple fact that this is so open and transparent—that there is so much accountability built into legislation—will ensure that this does not lead to a slippery slope. That is where I very much disagree with the contribution of the previous speaker.

Like other members of this parliament, I have received considerable correspondence from constituents and different groups. I, like the member for Canberra, attended the luncheon in the Great Hall for young people with type 1 diabetes. I asked the parent of one of the young people sitting next to me how they thought I should vote on this legislation. They implored me to vote for the legislation. They saw this as hope for the future of their child.

Prior to becoming a member of parliament I worked as a rehabilitation counsellor. I was on a spinal team, working with people who were high-level quadriplegics and paraplegics. I know that the one thing that kept them going was the hope that maybe one day a cure would be found—that maybe one day they would walk again. I cannot turn my back on them.

Alzheimer’s Australia have circulated a policy position statement to all members of the parliament. In it they recognise the potential for stem cell research to assist in the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. They implore us to support the recommendations of the Lockhart review. In particular, they support: maintaining the strong national regulatory framework governing the use of stem cells and embryos in research, which this bill does deliver; continuing to allow the use of ART embryos in research; and maintaining the prohibition on reproductive cloning. I think that is where the confusion arises. This bill is not about reproductive cloning; this is about therapeutic cloning. It is a very different thing. Alzheimer’s Australia also support allowing somatic cell nuclear transfer to be used for further research, establishing a national stem cell bank and encouraging public education. This legislation delivers all those things.

I would like to refer to some correspondence that I have received from Dr Paul Brock. His mother and his brother, who is a pastor, live in the electorate of Shortland. He is a sufferer of motor neurone disease. He is a highly educated man who made a submission to the inquiry into this bill by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs. He is the Director of Learning and Development Research in the New South Wales Department of Education and Training and holds a number of professorial positions. He says that he is a strong advocate of embryonic stem cell research. He is very supportive of the scientific arguments and the reassurances about the imposition of protocols and the really crucial factors included in this legislation. He spent a considerable time obtaining a religious education. He has six years of formal study in philosophy, theology and ethics as a member of a religious order of the Catholic Church—the Marist Brothers. So he is a committed Christian and a person who has considered a number of the issues that have been raised in this debate. But he is also a person who has had his life changed dramatically by motor neurone disease. In his submission he quotes Dr Dominic Rowe, who said:

If you were to design the worst possible disease that you could imagine, it would be Motor Neurone Disease. It is a disease that slowly robs you of mobility and function but keeps your other senses, sensation and intellect intact.

Dr Brock makes the point that at any one time 1,400 people are afflicted with motor neurone disease in Australia and that one person dies of it every day. He believes that the legislation we are debating in the parliament today offers him hope and offers hope to many other people in his position. In conclusion, I would like to say I believe this legislation sets a framework that enables research with the appropriate checks and balances. I support this legislation and will vote for it. (Time expired)

See this speech in context