Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to quickly respond to a couple of things in relation to the contributions from Senators Canavan and Keneally. First of all, in relation to the view that Senator Keneally has put to the chamber that we as a body should take note of the absence of the legalisation of these techniques in the United States, I put to the chamber that that is not a factor that should factor into our consideration. There are many legislated differences between Australia and the United States, which I'm sure we all welcome. At the top of my mind is gun control. We have very good gun control in Australia; there is a catastrophic absence of that in the United States. The United States's legislative framework shouldn't feed into our considerations.

Secondly, I turn to the comment that Senator Keneally made in relation to the privacy settings that exist in the United Kingdom and whether they should be fixed before the legislation passes. Privacy in relation to facilitated reproductive techniques is paramount. It's paramount in IVF techniques across the board. Why is it paramount? Senator Rice will be very familiar with this phenomenon as well. People born of medically facilitated techniques are often considered, in religious contexts, to be abominations and are subject to profound discrimination. So it is very important that we guarantee the privacy of those individuals. On Senator Keneally's point, I would also say that this is a trial. What's so wrong with inserting a number?—simply because it is arbitrary. It is an arbitrary number, as Senator Canavan said—something like 20. Well, why not 10? Why not five? Why not nine? It is arbitrary and there is no place in a scientific trial for us to insert ourselves in that process.

Finally, I make mention of the contributions made last night and today that touch on the rights of a child born of more than two parents. I simply put to you that we have two choices before ourselves today: to pass this piece of legislation or to not pass this piece of legislation—to pass it in a form that works or to put it in a form that hampers this work. If we take the path of passing these amendments, or voting down this bill, we will never have the opportunity to ask the individuals potentially born of these techniques what they would wish in relation to these rights. However, if people in this chamber are really very interested in having conversations with individuals born of complicated facilitated medical techniques then let us pass this bill and, in a decade, have the opportunity to ask them.