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

I wasn't going to contribute to this debate, but, following Senator McKim's intervention, I think it's very important to put on the record that Senator McKim refused to engage in any of the actual details that are included in this bill. Senator McKim—through you, Madam President—gave a speech around very broad generalisations of rights without in any way tackling the major issue that Senator Antic is bringing to this chamber, which is a matter of political controversy around the world. That is the simple question of whether minors—children—should be able to receive life-altering surgery or pharmaceuticals before the age of consent. That's all it is. I think that is a perfectly legitimate question to ask, because there is no more important thing we can do in this chamber than to protect children.

We have to be very clear here. I will just briefly go through some of the details of what is actually happening at the moment, rather than making accusations that different senators are reprehensible, deplorable people. What is actually happening right now is that young children in Australia are receiving pharmaceutical interventions that have not been approved or assessed for the use they're being put to. In particular, there's a chemical called Lupron, which is a TGA-approved drug for testicular cancer. It's been approved for use mainly by adult men who are afflicted with testicular cancer. It has not been approved or assessed by the TGA for use by children. There has been no assessment of that, yet in gender transition clinics in our country it is being used for minors. That is allowed to be done because it's an off-label use. It's being prescribed within the TGA's approved limits, but it's an off-label use.

Some observant senators might remember that there's been some controversy about off-label uses in recent years. People who had the temerity to use ivermectin for COVID, for example, were completely and utterly abused, with people saying that it was absurd and that it hadn't been tested for COVID. Here we have a drug that has not been assessed or tested for use in minors but is allowed, with little oversight, to be used on minors in Australia. Given the grave risks involved in it being applied to minors, I think it is only right and proper that we have an assessment of whether or not this is the right path to go down. There are no refunds for the children that might be afflicted by these pharmaceutical or surgical interventions. It's very hard for anyone to reverse the changes that are inflicted by these chemical interventions. I would have thought the Greens political party, more than any others, would understand the notion of the precautionary principle. Surely we should be very cautious about rolling out these types of interventions when we do not know what their long-term ramifications are because they haven't been assessed by a proper medical trial yet. They are being used in an effectively unregulated fashion.

Finally, there is nothing unique about our parliament or Australia looking at these issues in depth, given the controversies we've seen overseas. Many would know about the Tavistock clinic in the UK, which has been shut down by UK authorities because of the evidence that damaging and life-altering surgeries and other interventions were conducted on children. There was a long assessment of that institution in the UK, and, following that, it was shut down. Unfortunately, because this debate is being hijacked by those who prefer insults to debate, we are not having a similar assessment of the ramifications of what is occurring in our country on this issue. This bill gives us an opportunity to do that. I would encourage other senators to vote for this. Whatever views you have, what is there to hide here? Why are we trying to hide away from any parliamentary assessment or oversight the impacts on our children? It is far time we conduct this inquiry. I commend Senator Antic for bringing this to the chamber, and I hope that we can have an inquiry into a matter that is affecting the lives of children in this country.