James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to begin my comments by acknowledging the work of my colleague Senator Dean Smith in this space and to commend him and the many others in this building who have campaigned against organ trafficking. In particular, it is the leadership of Senator Smith in this space that deserves to be commended, and he deserves to be commended for bringing the Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2023 to the floor of the Senate today. I also acknowledge those in the gallery, who are witnessing and observing the debate in this chamber concerning this particular bill.

The coalition, being the party of the individual, particularly are opposed to organ trafficking, as we believe it violates so strongly the rights and dignity of the individual. It is a crime against humanity when states, individuals or corporations engage in the commercial trafficking of organs of their fellow humans. What I'd like to do, to make sure that we actually understand what we are talking about here today, is to make reference to Compassion, not commerce: an inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism, which is a report from the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. This report was quite brutal but definitive in its definition of what is meant by organ trafficking. Sometimes words are used without us fully understanding the context or the full meaning, and I think 'organ trafficking' is a set of words that can sometimes be passed by policymakers without a full understanding of what it means. This report said:

'Organ trafficking' encompasses two related types of activity: trafficking in human organs; and the trafficking of persons for the purpose of organ removal. 'Trafficking in human organs' refers to the unethical or illegal removal, transference or commercialisation of human organs, outside of the governance system of the relevant jurisdiction. Where trafficking in human organs is a crime—

it should be—

the object of that crime is the organ. The Australian Government considers 'trafficking in human organs' to mean:

…the illicit trafficking in human organs, tissues or cells obtained from living or deceased donors and transacted outside the legal national system for organ transplantation.

It is important to note that this does not stop organ recipients or donors who voluntarily travel internationally outside of commercial arrangements. For example, it is not uncommon for family members to travel internationally when there is a matching of tissues. It is not uncommon in Australia for people to volunteer their organs for removal. Indeed, in many jurisdictions in Australia it is not uncommon, when someone passes away, for the family of that person or that person prior to their passing to have made arrangements for the removal and use of their organs to save another human's life. That's not the trafficking of organs; that is what good people do to help humanity, and that is to be commended. To those who are listening and are not registered organ donors: I'd encourage you to do so. It's something that I am, and it is something that I'm sure many people in this chamber, regardless of our politics and our many differences, share—that is, a willingness to help our fellow humans.

But organ trafficking is not about that; organ trafficking is a crime against the sanctity of the individual. The bill that we are currently discussing in the chamber, brought forward by my colleague Senator Smith, derives its features from recommendations made in that report I mentioned previously. This bill adds a requirement to Australia's migration framework that persons entering Australia must disclose if they have received an organ transplant outside Australia within the last five years, and, if that is the case, the individual will be required to disclose the name of the medical facility where the transplant occurred, as well as the town or city and country of that facility. This obviously would not stop voluntary arrangements that may have been entered into by family members or where people, through their willingness to help their fellow humans, may have given up an organ and then a person who is in ill health has taken that particular organ. This is about clamping down on those who have been beneficiaries of organ trafficking.

So this information is to be disclosed by persons entering Australia via the incoming passenger card, then this data will be made available to the responsible minister, who will be required to table an annual report in parliament detailing the number of times persons entering Australia answered that they had received an organ transplant outside Australia, as well as the town or city and country where the organ transplant took place.

Before I move on to other elements of the bill, I would make reference to a media release from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This is from June 2021—14 June 2021, to be precise. The first paragraph of this press release says:

UN human rights experts said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged 'organ harvesting' targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China.

That first paragraph should send a chill up the spine of everybody in this chamber and indeed should send a chill up the spine of every Australian. The United Nations, back in 2021, reported that it has, effectively, evidence of trafficking of human organs. This press release goes on to say:

… they have received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations. The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation.

That is outrageous. That should make everybody in this chamber very angry. It should make everybody listening, whether in this chamber, in the galleries of this chamber or through the closed circuit televisions that operate through this building, angry that there is a country in this world that effectively commercialises the forced trafficking of organs, and that is why this bill is so timely.

This bill will amend the Migration Act 1958 to provide that a person will not pass the character test if the responsible minister reasonably suspects that the person has been involved in an offence involving trafficking in human organs. This is a very simple and, indeed, eloquent response to the issue of human trafficking, and it is something that I would ask those in Canberra, those in the government, to support. Indeed, my colleague Senator Smith would be very happy if the government took the elements of this bill, made them government policy and brought them forward as government legislation. He would be very happy, because what we want to see here is an outcome that not only fixes and brings a remedy to the issue of the trafficking of human organs but also continues to shine a light on this appalling issue. Australia is a liberal democracy. We're a proud liberal democracy, and we need to make sure, as we have done over many years, we stand up to those countries and stand up for those issues where the dignity and the rights of the human are impacted upon.

Australia has done more than its fair share. I think we probably almost lead the world in some aspects of this, but what this bill does is make sure that we will do more. And we should do more. No human, whether they be Falun Gong, Uighur, Tibetan, Christian, Muslim or Chinese, who is in communist China and who may be in detention should be put into a subhuman system where they are treated as a commercial product to be harvested as someone would pull a carrot from the ground or pick an apple from a tree. We are talking about humans here.

For this bill I commend Senator Smith, and, in looking at the time—I know Senator Smith wishes to speak in this debate that he has initiated—I commend this bill to the Senate and ask everybody in this chamber to please support it.