Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Very briefly, I want to reiterate some of the points Senators Watt and Steele-John have made, which is that this bill provides for a carefully staged approach. Within that staged approach, there are regulatory regimes put in place in terms of the type of licensing regime that would have to be applied by the NHMRC's Embryo Research Licensing Committee, and there are strong criminal penalties that apply to those sorts of licensing regimes to provide for an effective regulatory approach.

Stage 1 around this is focused on clinical trials. Should the evidence be there in terms of supporting the evaluation of those stage 1 clinical trials, it then moves to a stage of treatment. There would need to be regulations made, as you've heard, but, as is the case in so many fields, those regulations are disallowable; the parliament would not lose the opportunity to have a say. The parliament would absolutely have a say, as disallowance motions are moved on a regular basis—maybe not as regularly as Senator Steele-John would like, and, as a government minister, I wouldn't encourage too many more of them, but it is absolutely the right of every member of either chamber to move such disallowance. Then, of course, the power of such disallowance is it must be voted on. It must be debated, or else the disallowance is considered to have been carried. So that is a significant power that senators carry when that is the case.

As others have noted as well, there are further provisions which would enable states or territories to enact laws for authorising, providing yet further restrictions that could be applied. So I contend that these amendments of Senator Canavan's are unnecessary. I urge the Senate to oppose those amendments and respect the proposal that has been developed as part of the consultations undertaken.