Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Lockhart review found when they were doing their consultations that people who were having, in particular, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis had embryos that were deemed not to be suitable for implantation because they had genetic errors—for example, Huntington’s chorea. Because of the way the current bills are written, those could not be used for studying or developing stem cell lines—where people doing research can look at a stem cell line and where cells go wrong in that process. There are some diseases that cannot be identified in an embryo; others can.

It seemed to the Lockhart committee and to those of us supporting the bill that those embryos that are unavailable because of the guidelines stating that people have to give informed consent for a period of time, and that are unable to be frozen, were wasted. People who had those diseases also expressed concern that those embryos were not able to be used for research. What Senator Stott Despoja said before was that there are a number of ways—I will not put words in her mouth—to kill a cat. And there are a number of ways to approach the legislation. With any legislation there are as many ways to draft a bill as there are the number of people drafting it, especially when you are approaching two bills. I believe that the way the bill before us is drafted deals with the issue, and Senator Stott Despoja has expressed that view. I admit there is another way of doing it, but I would prefer to leave it as it is because I think it deals with it.

I want to say here that I appreciate all the work that Senator Stott Despoja has put in. I have to say that she is probably the most informed person in the Senate in this area—I am not going to compete with her on that—and she has put in a huge amount of work. I recognise that there is another way of doing it, but I will not be supporting her amendment.