Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

In the two minutes I have, there are a couple of points I'd like to make. One is that as this debate started I had the opportunity to engage with the Mito Foundation and a number of other experts to try to understand this legislation. I absolutely understand the intent behind it and I support the intent behind it, which is to alleviate suffering and to use research to alleviate suffering. I think we should look for all reasonable and ethical measures that we possibly can to that end, so I commend those great scientists who engage in that type of work.

But I do want to associate myself with some of the comments we've heard from Senator Keneally and Senator Canavan in support of these particular amendments. I think that these amendments would alleviate one of the worst and most morally problematic parts of this bill—that is, that the bill allows the creation of a human life for the purposes of using it for research which inherently means its destruction. That is a massive ethical line that we are on the verge of crossing in this country through this legislation, where for the first time we will be allowing the creation of a human life specifically for the purpose of destroying it in research. We haven't done that in the past. We didn't do that, in fact, even when it came to stem cell research, and we had a lengthy debate in relation to that. We were told that embryonic stem cells had the most potential; it turned out actually adult stem cells delivered great potential and great scientific advances without those ethical concerns. So, I support this. I think we are crossing a really serious line, and it's not one I support, but I support these amendments.