Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This type of bill is the very best of this place in action. The Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill is for a noble cause and is being brought on by a person of passion with all the right reasons. It hasn't been brought on by a government department or a scandal; it has been brought on by the passion of one person, Senator Dean Smith, who is sitting in front of me. This is an issue that is dear to his heart, and in this Senate there will not be a single person—I say this with confidence—that supports the illegal trade of organs around the world.

What this bill comes down to is that you can't improve what you can't measure. The greatest criticism against this bill is that they don't think there would be 100 per cent compliance in filling out the card. In one media article they said they didn't think the majority of people would fill it out. I think some people will fill it out honestly. Some people will easily say what has happened and where it has happened. That would build a model for the future; it would start to build an information bank of what we can look at, going forward. It would start to build a lookalike profile on the people that may be going overseas for legal and, unfortunately, sometimes unknowingly, illegal organ trades.

What we have here is a situation where I can leave the country and I can have an organ donation somewhere, when there's a match somewhere else. I can go in with the best of intentions; I can think it's being done the right way—or I don't know what's going on—but I'm buying my way into that transplant. I might not know that I've done something wrong. Filling out this form can help, if I think I'm doing the right thing.

Also, if I'm doing the wrong thing and I don't fill this out, that lookalike map can help tell authorities what's going on. For the first time, it also makes a crime involved. If I go overseas, get an organ donation and do it the wrong way and then come back to Australia, I'm committing no crime in Australia. I may be committing a crime if I go to a South-East Asian country or to another country where this happens and get it done; I may be committing a crime in that country. But once I'm in Australia I'm safe. No-one can touch me. There are no ramifications.

We've all seen, in other committees—and Senator Steele-John is here; we went through the dental committee not long ago—the disparity in the health of those who have and those who have not. And we're seeing this internationally. Where do these organs come from? They come from the dispossessed, from the nonpowerful, from the sometimes detained. They come from the very weakest socioeconomic and least educated people in our communities. In the lead-up to this, I read about—of all things!—a senator from an African country who flew a person to the United Kingdom to harvest their organs in the United Kingdom for a transplant. That is an abuse of power, and it happens.

So say I'm that person, and I come back to Australia, having had my organ transplant that I've paid my way into. Someone has suffered to give me that—maybe without their consent; maybe because they're in prison; maybe because they are so economically hard-up that they have had to do this or because of other coercion pressures; who knows what's been done. I come back to Australia, and I'm fine; I am untouchable. This is a very small thing, but at least it's something we can have a go at. It's not a big thing, but remember: when they went after Al Capone, they went after him for tax evasion. Starting the process of calling these people out and getting them found out in doing a wrong thing is important.

And what is the cost to the government to start this journey? Almost nothing. We are printing these arrival cards all the time. The information is processed all the time. So there is very little cost to provide a massive chance of improvement for the lives of many around the world who are so impoverished that they have no power.

This won't change the world overnight, but it is a step, and we need to start taking the steps to stop this trade—to stop those who are incarcerated being profiled and tested and then having their organs harvested to create an Alibaba of organs—a database of organs that you can buy on the net, from which you can see if you match up—so that the rich and powerful can take the lives of others. We heard the previous speaker, Senator Scarr, read from a UN press release that No. 1 on the list of organs harvested is the heart. Even if people were forced to give up a kidney or another part—even maybe part of their liver—they could still live, though that is a horrible thing to have happen. But no-one survives having their heart taken out.

So to say, 'Oh, we're worried that it won't capture all of the data, so we can't move forward,' is to make a weak argument. Capturing some of the data, changing the act so that we have a character test and can cancel visas, building up a knowledge base and starting to track where this trade happens, how it happens and who goes to this trade, are important steps.

Let's say this chamber is unified in wanting to stop this trade but there are some other calls for information campaigns, advertising campaigns, to replace this bill. No-one in the world goes to get an illegal organ transplant because they aren't desperate. The people who do so have money, are desperate and want to jump the queue. Some of them might see this as the way. They're not going to be dissuaded from doing this by an advertising campaign. If anything, it would raise awareness that this trade exists, and that is a worse outcome than what we're talking about here. The bill we are talking about, Senator Smith's bill, is taking very pragmatic steps, like those, as we heard, in the rest of the world to build a profile of what happens here. The claims that it does nothing are just wrong, because some people will fill this out and we will know the sites they are going to.

When you read the testimony of the people this has happened to, of the horrors of that; when you read about the pressure that people who have sold their organs felt, going into it; when you hear of trafficking where people are used as a travel container to move their organs to another country to get harvested; when you hear that people in prison are killed or maimed for others—it is the worst type of oppression that occurs. So to take a step down the path to make the trade harder, to take a step down the path to eliminate it, is never a bad thing.

When we hear that five per cent of organ transplants in the world are known to be illegal, that's 'known'; there may be far more. We also hear about the practices where some countries are using medical professionals—trained medical professionals, who are meant to have a standard of ethics—to do this. Some do not use them. That same ABC article that I spoke about as to the senator from Africa moving someone to London to have their organs harvested—I think it was a kidney in that case—talks about how, in another country, a mechanic was applying the anaesthetics for organ harvesting and the person removing the organs was not professionally trained. So what is the chance of success, even if you go and have these organs, that you won't have rejection or that the drugs will be there to support it? Are these people being killed for nothing?

Getting back to the key parts of this bill, a disclosure that you have or have not had an organ transplant in the past five years in an overseas country—that's all it is, on a piece of paper. Why? So we can track the bad guys, so we can start to build a pattern of what happens, so we can start to eliminate the trade. The cost to the Australian taxpayer is minimal—new cards and a bit of data processing. The potential benefit to those that have the least power in this world is magnificent. I sit here and I understand that this is a matter of semantics—'Will it work? Won't it work?' As Senator Scarr raised and Senator Smith nodded to, it can be reviewed. If you want it to be reviewed in two years, bring that on as an amendment. Have a look at what we can do. We want this thing to work. If you have any other ideas, bring it into this bill to add to its efficiency, to add to its efficacy. We can't sit by and do nothing.

And, if we are going for the perfect solution all of the time, we are wasting our time in this chamber on everything. Everything has its rough edges. Senator Smith, my good friend, might not like me to point out any rough edges on this one—it may be a polished diamond—but this is something. It comes from a good place, from a pure place in his heart, to help those who are the weakest in the world—not just in Australia; the weakest in the world. Australia is a rich nation, and I feel sure at least one person in our country will have benefited from an illegal organ at some time in their life. If we can stop this happening anywhere, if we can de-incentivise, if we can demonetise, if we can find the areas where this is happening and make it just that bit harder, just that bit less profitable, just that bit more catchable, if we save a life, it matters all the difference in the world to that one person. If we are saying no to that today because we are worried about a little bit of printing ink, then who are we?

We, in this world, have to look at what's important to us, and the sanctity of human life is No. 1—the sanctity of dignity of the people all around the world. We sit there on many issues and we look at Australia's effects on the world in so many ways, on our industry, on our unemployment, on our pollution—that comes up. But this is fundamental life and death, to take another person's organs, to take their heart, to take their sight with a cornea or lens removal—and we say it's not worth some printing ink.

So I urge everyone here to go home—I don't think we'll get to a vote today—and to think about their positions. If they have these concerns, think about what they could do to make the bill a little bit more to their liking and to bring in those changes so that we can discuss them here, so that we can take that next step. Somewhere in the world, there is a person today who is either being pressured, forced or paid to trade in an organ. That is the reality of what we're doing here today. That is happening today in the world. Somewhere today, someone is being transported to have a part of their body removed for the benefit of someone more powerful, someone richer, someone better connected. If we don't take a step stopping that, we need to look at ourselves. So I commend this bill. I thank the senator for bringing it forward, and I urge everyone to support it.