Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

There are checks and balances in this bill, including parliamentary scrutiny. It is a disallowable instrument in terms of the regulations that are issued by the NHMRC, which would take us from stage 1 to stage 2.

What I think is also incredibly important to recognise is that, in order to put this out into clinical practice in the states and the clinics, state parliaments would also be required to amend their laws. We don't need this extra layer of regulation. We have plenty of opportunity as a parliament to monitor what the NHMRC does in its regulation and to disallow that instrument or inquire into that instrument, if we like, through a parliamentary committee process in order to engage on those issues. It is simply unnecessary to require this parliament to come back and re-legislate all of these provisions.

This amendment removes the clinical practice stage in all of these schedules; it is unnecessary. We will have an opportunity to disallow future regulations if it is considered ethical to do so. But I think the chamber needs to understand that state parliaments will also be legislating on this matter before it goes to the clinical practice stage.