Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021, as senators would realise, establishes five different types of licences. It effectively establishes two stages to introduce mitochondrial donation into our laws. As has been described, this will be a new and revolutionary form of human gene therapy that is prohibited under our laws today. Because of that, the bill seeks to establish some trial and research licences in the first stage. There are three of those that are particularly specified in this bill. Then, following the research and trials, the bill outlines two additional licences—a clinical research licence and a clinical practice licence—that would then be allowed for to provide for widespread adoption of mitochondrial services to the broader population, outside of research and trials.

I am a little concerned here that the approach adopted in this bill continues some of the deficiencies we have seen emerge in the Senate on the use and overuse of delegated legislation. This bill establishes a regulatory framework for mitochondrial donation. However, at the conclusion of the research and trial phase—the so-called stage 1 in this approach—there are no specific conditions to be placed on the licences that will apply to clinical practice trials.