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

I just want to say that it was somewhat arbitrary on Senator Stott Despoja’s part. There is another similar bill which has a much longer period. We thought that one month was sufficient. But if the bill goes through it will be reviewed. If it is not sufficient time then that will be expressed.

One of the things it does give me an opportunity to say is that this is about strengthening the bill. This was not there before, in the previous bill in 2002. The Lockhart committee discovered that people could be breaking the law if they were outside of an institution that was not licensed and they had very few tools to actually apprehend those people. So this is a strengthening of the bill. For those people who are opposing the bill, I point out that there are parts of this bill that are about strengthening the oversight of this sort of research and making sure it is not being undertaken in black-market laboratories—I do not know what you would call them—or at-home laboratories or wherever else, or in institutions that do not have a licence. So this does give me the opportunity to say that this is about strengthening the bill. I agree with Senator Stott Despoja’s amendment.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Stott Despoja and Senator Webber’s) be agreed to.