Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to associate myself with the remarks made by Senator O'Neill and Senator Canavan and indicate to the chamber that I will be supporting this amendment.

I am prompted to my feet in part by the comments, which I do respect, from Senator Steele-John because I do fear that those who are watching this debate may form a view that those of us who do not support the bill are somehow against medical progress or medical technology. We are not. In fact, I do agree with Senator Steele-John: research, technology, progress and things that save lives should occur. And Senator Steele-John makes a very valid observation about how his own personhood demonstrates the capacity of medical research and advanced understandings that people with a disability not only survive births that they wouldn't have decades ago or centuries ago but indeed are able to live lives fully participating in the community. I say to Senator Steele-John that two of my three children would not have survived their births had it not been for caesareans and other medical interventions. I think we all have stories like that in this chamber. We all do.

One of my children didn't survive her birth. She died of a genetic condition for which there is no known cause or cure. Yet I can't support this bill because, in my mind, and on the basis of both ethical convictions and the paucity of the scientific evidence, I have serious concerns. Just because we can do something, it doesn't mean we should do it.

The way I think about the need for regulation and oversight here is not dissimilar to how I think about regulation and oversight when it comes to extraordinary powers, for example, in the national security space. The view I bring to those legislative considerations is the more intrusive a power the more necessary that there be appropriate oversight. This is an incredibly intrusive power. Let's be clear about it: if it passes this parliament, it is an incredibly intrusive intervention in human existence.

We are not only going to intervene in one of the most personal situations of the human existence—that is, how children are conceived—but we are going to do it in a way that is novel, that is untested and that will alter mitochondrial DNA. We don't yet know what the outcome of that is on human beings; we simply don't. We have theories, but we don't know. Indeed, the Senate report—this very chamber's own report—said that that was a foundational question that needed to be answered, and it hasn't been answered. What we know is that the United Kingdom does not have data to provide. I believe they have issued six licences. I could stand corrected; it might be eight, but they've got six, and no baby has been born. We just don't have that data.

So, although I will be voting against this bill even if this amendment passes, I think it is important that, if this bill does pass this parliament, there is appropriate oversight. Senator Canavan is right: we have a bill involving such significant intervention into the human condition—the very nature of who we are as human beings—and we haven't identified the appropriate oversight body. To me, that is a fundamental flaw of the legislation. It may be right that the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator is not the most appropriate body, and, if this bill were to pass and the government wants to come back and find a different oversight model, I'd be open to that. But I think there must be something. The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator is in the Department of Health, and, in the absence of having any other body, I think it's appropriate that that is the body.

Again, I come back to the comments of Senator Canavan about not having a tension or a conflict of interest between the practitioners and the oversight bodies. That's a fundamental foundational principle when it comes to how we deal with national security legislation and intrusive powers.

I think it's incredibly important that this bill use appropriate oversight should it pass. This may not be the perfect solution, but it is better than what is currently in the legislation.