Page 938 - Week 03 - Thursday, 3 April 2008
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therapeutic cloning, said on ABC radio. She was commenting on the finding that they could use adult stem cells, for instance, taken from skin, and that they therefore do not have to ever destroy an embryo to get an embryonic stem cell. Professor Skene says:
It’s a very exciting breakthrough and if it works then it wouldn’t be necessary to use the embryo process any longer, which would take away a lot of the ethical concerns.
Here is a prominent member of the Lockhart review—the review quoted by the minister as the justification for this bill to go ahead today—saying, in effect, that the Lockhart review is now out of date and that the Lockhart review has been superseded by science, science that even when the Lockhart review was going to press was being developed by scientists who were then saying, “We do not need to use embryo stem cells because we can do it from other means.” If, as Professor Skene says, it would take away a lot of the ethical concerns—if there are still ethical concerns from the people who put together the Lockhart committee’s report—then surely we in this place should defer this and go back to the commonwealth and say, “Yes, we may well have signed up to the Lockhart review when it first came out, but your review is now out of date and has proved to be wrong.”
The ministers have made much in the last couple of months about how you get more information and then you change your view. I challenge all of the ministers and all of those who intend to vote for this bill today to say, “Okay, at a point in time in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007 we may have formed this view on the science based on the knowledge that was available to us on that day. But we now know from a very important figure in the Lockhart process that it is not required.” If you can change your mind on Monday on things that affect the running of the government, the day-to-day things, the bricks and mortar things, as opposed to the issue of protecting human life, then perhaps we all should change our minds.
We talk about the preventative principle in this place a lot—that is, let us not do something of which we do not know the outcome. In that case, let us apply that principle to this bill today. In the reading of the flimsy document that is the supporting document that a court would go to or the community would go to to see what was the intent of the minister here, the first page is basically a rundown on how there was an intergovernmental agreement. But when you go to the substantive part of the speech and the Lockhart review and the changes that occur, there is absolutely no justification for this to go ahead.
Everything we do in this place is surely to make the life of Canberrans better for them, for the lives that they lead here in the ACT. Surely if, as Professor Skene says, there are huge ethical concerns about using embryos and we have this contradiction that exists in the minister’s tabling statement, then perhaps the minister might like to withdraw the bill or move that debate on the bill be adjourned.
Ms Gallagher: Sorry, no.
MR SMYTH: The minister says sorry, which means she refuses to listen to the logic of this. The sad thing is, minister, that the world has moved on. What you are putting forward is a bill in 2008 based on information from 2006 which is now inaccurate.
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