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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Thursday, 1 April 2004) . . Page.. 1602 ..

Clauses 36 to 39, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 40.

MRS DUNNE (10.59): Mr Speaker, I propose we remove all the provisions in clause 40 for sunset clauses, expiry dates and the ways in which those expiry dates might be changed by the Council of Australian Governments. Clause 40 refers to provisions earlier in the bill.

This legislation refers to embryos that were created before 5 April 2002. What we are saying is that embryos created before 5 April 2002 are basically the excess embryos that are subject to this law. What will happen in a year’s time, if we keep this clause, is that all of the things that we are now debating about excess embryos will become redundant. There will be no distinction between excess embryos and other embryos.

We have all debated this matter on the basis that it is about excess embryos, but what is an excess embryo? In this legislation it is an embryo that was created for a particular purpose and was no longer wanted for that purpose by 5 April 2002. It was originally claimed that these embryos had been created for assisted reproductive technological treatment of a woman and that the woman no longer required the embryos. However, with the passing of the expiry provisions in clause 40, after 5 April next year there will be no constraints on the creation of embryos for this purpose.

At the moment, there are constraints: you can use embryos that were created for assisted reproductive technology and are no longer needed for that purpose. After 5 April next year, you will be able to create embryos for any purpose, which can be used for experimentation and the whole range of things that we have talked about tonight. Stem cells could be extracted from them that may or may not create cures; they could be used for testing on animals or testing mediums or they could be used by people who wish to practise dissecting—or all of these things. What we are doing is creating an entire underclass of embryos that can be used for any means that we would like.

What this will mean is that, in practice, as it stands at the moment, after 5 April 2005—or the ministers in COAG may choose to make it an earlier date—scientists will be able to create as many embryos as they like for research, cosmetic testing and anything else that they like, as long as the NHMRC approves of it. I think that we have gone far enough. We should not just leave this matter up to the passing of time or the whim of COAG. We are a sovereign parliament after all, and we should be making those decisions for ourselves, in our territory. It should not be the mere elapse of time or the whim of the New South Wales Premier, a few other premiers and the Prime Minister that determines what we do here.

This change is not unprecedented: the South Australian parliament removed these provisions so that, if it wants to remove the April 2002 date, it has to go back to the parliament and do it. Similarly, such a provision was removed by the New South Wales upper house and reinserted when it was returned to the lower house. There are precedents for our taking control of this legislation.

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