Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make some brief comments on this report on the review of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002, and I thank Senator Ian Macdonald for the opportunity to do so. As surprising as it may seem in this place, I must say that I agree with Senator Macdonald’s approach to this. Whilst I hear the message loud and clear from Senator Bartlett, as someone who is also a member of a major party I believe decisions to bring a piece of legislation or a reform agenda to this place always need discussion in a party room first, because there are some threshold issues. Our leader, the Labor leader, Kim Beazley, has already foreshadowed what he thinks should be the approach to this issue, which is that—like we have always been able to do when these sorts of issues come before the parliament—we should all be able to exercise our individual consciences and bring our individual moral code and threshold beliefs when considering this issue.

The Lockhart review is to be commended for its thoroughness in tackling what is a very sensitive issue. In these days of improved living standards, improved life expectancy and improved access to science and knowledge, the quest to find cures for what were otherwise, for want of a better term, death sentences, is well beyond my comprehension. Therefore, I believe it is right that we as legislators have a discussion about the framework in which that quest should be undertaken—a framework that looks at those threshold issues of safety, ethics and, as I say, our own moral code. It is only by having that discussion, both within our parties to begin with and then within the parliament, with significant technical advice, that we can advance this issue.

As a participating member of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee, I have been involved in the inquiry being conducted into the treatment in Australia of gynaecological cancers. The evidence that we have received loud and clear from some of the world experts in the Garvan Institute about the quest for a cure for not only gynaecological cancers but also breast cancers goes to that next threshold issue of the use of the human genome as a predictive tool and then perhaps the use of stem cells in the quest to find the ultimate cure for those who already have the disease.

This is a debate that is going on, as has been alluded to by Senator Bartlett, in a number of states and in other nations. In my view, it would be naive in the extreme to think that Australia will not be having this debate. At some point we do need to have this debate. The Lockhart review, and improved knowledge and consideration amongst those of us here of the issues raised in that review, is a very good starting point for that debate. It is a debate that we can delay but we cannot avoid. We need to have openness and to consider the best way forward. I commend not only Senator Ian Macdonald’s remarks but also the report to the chamber.