Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table an explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Introduction

I rise to commend this Bill to the Senate.

The amendments proposed in the Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2023 are sensible and non-controversial, but they are also meaningful improvements that will advance Australia's mission to uphold and enhance human rights -both here and around the world.

Organ trafficking is a uniquely appalling violation of the dignity of the individual, defined by the unethical removal, transfer, or commercialisation of human organs for transplantation outside legal frameworks.

The matter of organ harvesting and trafficking has been the subject of discussion and inquiry over many years.

Features of this Bill derive primarily from inquiry and recommendations made by the Human Rights sub-committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade report Compassion, Not Commerce: An inquiry into Human Organ Trafficking and Organ Transplant Tourism, which wastabled in November 2018.

This report recommended a mandatory reporting scheme, where medical professionals would carry an obligation to report any knowledge or suspicion of a commercial transplant taking place.

Balancing the need to report data that can be used to counter organ trafficking practices internationally with the need to preserve an individual's right to reasonable medical privacy, this Bill instead proposes the mandatory reporting of overseas transplants mechanism be undertaken via the incoming passenger card.

What the Bill does

The amendments provided for in this Bill:

If this is the case, the individual will be required to disclose the name of the medical facility where that transplant occurred, and the town and/or city and country of the facility.

This information is to be disclosed by persons entering Australia via the incoming passenger card.

The resulting data will then be made available to the responsible Minister, who will be required to table an annual report in the Parliament detailing:

Migration Act 1958

These measures are purposefully designed to assist in global efforts to prevent organ trafficking.

Australia's approach thus far

In 2005, the Australian Government criminalised organ trafficking under the Criminal Code Act 1995 and, in 2013, strengthened the Commonwealth Criminal Code by introducing four stand-alone organ trafficking offences.

Australia's organ trafficking offences criminalise the movement of people to, from, or within Australia for the unlawful removal of their organs. An organ does not have to be removed for an organ trafficking offence to be committed.

In addition, Australia has several non-legislative measures in place to complement the legal framework and ensure a holistic approach to address organ trafficking.

The Australian Government is set to conduct training programs for officials in law enforcement, immigration compliance, the Fair Work Ombudsman, and diplomatic and consular position, to increase awareness of the indicators of organ trafficking.

The Commonwealth Criminal Code also stipulates that organ transplant tourism constitutes an organ trafficking offence if a person organised or facilitated the transport, or proposed transport, of the donor to, from or within Australia.

The incidence of organ harvesting and trafficking

When organs are provided to recipients through illicit means of coercion or compulsion, the result is a tragedy in which one human life is prized more than another.

This represents an egregious attack on the foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the commitment contained within it that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights".

Every time a person is pressured to sell an organ to another, or when a prisoner of conscience is executed and their organs harvested, this principle of universal human equality and dignity is transgressed.

Importantly, the clandestine nature of both harvesting and trafficking makes the trade in human organs difficult to quantify.

However, concerns about the occurrence and scale of organ trafficking are justified given the significant imbalance between the number of patients globally who are awaiting an organ transplant and the limited availability of consensual, legal organs for transplantation.

Several recent events have made the need for remedies to this international crime more urgent.

In September 2021, the Australian Government responded to the Compassion, Not Commerce: An inquiry into Human Organ Trafficking or Organ Transplant Tourism report, describing the issue of organ trafficking and related crimes as "a complex, evolving problem, encompassing many countries".

This evidence—procured from a variety of global bodies, governments, and NGOs—coincides with increasing reports and examples of organ trafficking and harvesting across the world, with concern the scale of the activity is more widespread that previously imagined.

Importantly, the Bill fulfils a number of recommendations of the Compassion, Not Commerce: An inquiry into Human Organ Trafficking or Organ Transplant Tourism report, including:

Of relevance here is recent evidence provided to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade by the Australian Government in response to questions raised about the Government's position on revelations regarding organ harvesting in our region.

The Australian Government's evidence cited the June 2021 report of the 12 UN Special Procedures experts, which identified "credible evidence" that ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be subject to organ harvesting in our region.

In addition, Deakin University has reported that the number of people waiting for an organ transplant globally outweighs the number of organs available for ethical and legal transplantations. This deficit is estimated to have resulted in a black market of more than 10,000 unethical transplants a year, or more than one every hour.

Consistency with international efforts

The amendments contained in the Bill compliment efforts taken internationally to respond to the growing prevalence of organ trafficking.

In May 2021, the United Kingdom House of Lords amended the Human Tissue Act 2004 following passage of the Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill [HL] and it awaits debate in the House of Commons.

The Bill prohibits citizens and residents of the United Kingdom from travelling internationally to receive material for a transplant that was obtained without the consent of a donor and a donor's next of kin.

The Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill [HL] is aimed at preventing the rising prevalence of organ tourism, characterised as the practice by which citizens of a country that has a rigorous legal framework preventing unethical transplant travel to countries with weaker legal frameworks to receive an illicitly purchased organ.

In December 2022, the Canadian Parliament amended the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to create new offences in relation to trafficking in human organs and to provide that a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissible to Canada if the appropriate Minister is of the opinion that they have engaged in certain activities relating to trafficking in human organs.

The penalty for breach of the Canadian organ trafficking offences is 14 years in prison.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. While there are limitations regarding the extent to which we, as Australians, can prevent human rights violations abroad, Australia maintains a responsibility to do everything within our Parliamentary mechanisms to uphold the inviolability of universal human dignity.

It is not enough to be a signatory to international conventions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the Genocide Convention, without doing what we can to ensure the tenets of these conventions are upheld globally. This amendment is a step forward toward that eternal and noble goal.

Conclusion

The amendments contained in this Bill are designed to be a practical and least intrusive tool to support global efforts in combatting organ trafficking.

They should be seen as sensible and timely initiatives that add to the suite of other measures that have already been incorporated in the law and support other non-legislative measures being used by Australian authorities.

I commend this Bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.