Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Boothby will resume his seat. I name the honourable member for Moncrieff.

I move:

That the member for Moncrieff be suspended from the service of the House.

The question is that the member be suspended from the service of the House. All those of that opinion say aye, the contrary no. I think the ayes have it. Division required. In accordance with standing order 133, the division is deferred until the commencement of the next sitting.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: House of Representatives Practice, page 524, says that where the question has not been resolved:

If the question is resolved in the negative, the Member may return to the Chamber.

I ask you, Mr Speaker, to use your discretion to put the motion.

In accordance with standing order 133, I have deferred the division.

Opposition members interjecting—

Order! The chair will be resumed in 15 minutes.

Order! Before proceeding, I simply call upon the House to reflect on its ability to conduct itself in a dignified manner. I appreciate that, as a consequence of the standing orders agreed to last week, there are people in the House who feel aggrieved and that, as a demonstration of their frustration, the events of this morning have transpired. I ask the House to consider that motions have been put forward by both sides of the House to be discussed and I call upon the House to allow those proceedings to continue. In that case, I call the member for Fremantle.

The reality is that in 2007 across Australia fewer than 700 organs were donated from only 198 donors. As it currently stands, in Western Australia there were 19 donors last year, and I have been advised that so far there has only been one donor in 2008 and that occurred at the Fremantle Hospital.

It has been recognised for some time that Australia’s rate of organ donation, at 10 donors per million of population, is at the lower end of the international scale, compared with countries like Spain with a rate of 35 donors per million and the United States with 21.5 donors per million. What is of particular concern is the fact that the number of donors per year has shown negligible growth between 1989 and the present. According to the figures of the Australia and New Zealand Organ Donation Registry, there were 231 donors in 1989, which is the highest figure recorded, and only 198 last year. The lowest annual figure was 183, recorded in 1994. Incidentally, that was the year when, as the solicitor in charge of the Bunbury Community Legal Centre, I wrote an article for my local newspaper regarding the issue of organ donation, not from a legal perspective but from a human one.

I had become aware that each year thousands of Australians were dying or suffering blindness or the debilitating experience of being hooked up to a dialysis machine for several hours every few days for want of healthy organs, a situation that appeared entirely preventable. I later became aware that the shortage of organs is a universal problem. In my work with the United Nations in Kosovo, while chairing a working group on trafficking in persons, I learned of the horrifying international trade in organs and the phenomenon of ‘transplant tourism’. A December 2007 World Health Organisation report has noted that potential organ recipients from countries including Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the USA travel abroad to undergo organ donation from live kidney and liver donors from such countries as Pakistan, India, Bolivia, Brazil, Iraq, Moldova, Peru and Turkey.

On another aspect of the international organ trade, the WHO report noted that in China around 12,000 kidney and liver transplants were performed in 2005, with most of the transplanted organs alleged to have been procured from executed prisoners. Many operations involved non-Chinese citizens as organ recipients. The WHO and other bodies have raised concern about the dangerous consequences of the international organ trade, both for live organ donors, most of whom are coerced into it through extreme poverty or force, and for recipients who may undergo surgery in substandard conditions and may not survive the transplant process.

It is an appalling situation when Australians in desperate need of an organ feel they must travel overseas to obtain one. Of course, the majority of Australians in need of an organ—and there are approximately 1,900 people currently on the waiting list—do not travel overseas but continue to suffer, to wait and to hope here in Australia. It is a matter of general and bipartisan agreement that we need to lift the number of organ donors and the number of successful transplants that ensue.

This week, being Organ Donor Awareness Week, it is a perfect opportunity to raise the profile of organ donation and to encourage Australians across the board to consider the generous act of registration and to discuss the issue with their families. I note that DonateWest, the Western Australian agency for organ and tissue donation, has this week commenced its Don’t Waste your Wish campaign, the first of its kind in WA. One of the lines in the campaign makes the point: there are some wishes you can’t keep to yourself. That nicely expresses both sides of the equation here: the selflessness of giving and the magical gift it makes possible.

In my electorate of Fremantle, well-known bluegrass musician and local celebrity Jim Fisher has been the recipient of a liver transplant. He speaks with a humble awareness of how lucky he has been to receive a liver and how he had to wait only nine months to receive his transplant, while he has seen other people die waiting for transplants. Jim is well aware that it was not only the generosity of his donor but also Australia’s free public health system that contributed to his still being alive today.

Jim’s recovery after the operation was not immediate. He said he felt like he had been ‘bashed by Mike Tyson for a week’ after receiving his new liver, but some time later he was back playing music in pubs, parks and festivals around Fremantle and around Australia with his band, the Sensitive New Age Cowpersons. As the band’s name and songs such as Daddy wore a mullet suggest, Jim is a man who genuinely enjoys life and he is grateful to have had a second chance, thanks to an organ donation.

I also want to draw special attention to the new Paired Kidney Exchange Program operating at Fremantle Hospital in the renal unit, headed by Professor Paulo Ferrari. The unique aspect of this program is that it matches family members who are incompatible donors with other families who are similarly unable to donate to their loved one. The two families, both in the same situation, literally swap kidneys, with the approval of the state health minister, under amendments made to the Human Tissue and Transplant Act of WA. The first paired kidney exchange occurred in October last year. This is the kind of innovative policy that could be extended nationally and would result in a significant lift in the rate of live kidney donations. The Western Australian government is encouraging other states to participate in this program.

Indigenous Australians are disproportionately represented as far as kidney disease is concerned. There has only been one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander donor in the last five years and there are cultural reasons, both ancient and modern, for this. The renal department of the Royal Perth Hospital is planning a forum later this year which will address this and other matters.

The final point I wish to make is that all states and territories and both sides of this House agree that action must be taken on the urgent issue of organ donation. This week, two new members, the member for Moreton and the member for Longman, movingly highlighted this issue in their first speeches. I intend to include a prominent article in my first electorate newsletter about organ donor registration, and I hope other members will consider doing the same. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of this House, as we discuss every option to increase the rate of organ donation in Australia. It is most encouraging and perhaps not well understood that some 94 per cent of Australians have indicated their support for organ and tissue donation. We now need to convert that very high level of approval into action.

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