HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-28 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

STATUTES AMENDMENT (PROHIBITION OF HUMAN CLONING FOR REPRODUCTION AND REGULATION OF RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN EMBRYOS) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 24 September 2008. Page 243.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:01): I rise today to speak on this bill and, in doing so, I indicate to the house that the opposition has determined that it will not have any party position on this matter and that, as is always the case for the Liberal Party, it will be a matter of conscience as to how members ultimately determine their vote. To ensure that they feel absolutely free in that regard, we have determined that we will not have a party position on this matter, and I understand that a number of members of the opposition wish to contribute to the debate. The bill was introduced by the Minister for Health in September this year, and it has some history, to which I propose to refer during the course of my contribution.

This week, we celebrate Breast Cancer Week, and I say 'celebrate' because it is important that, during this week, we remember those we have loved and lost to cancer, particularly breast cancer; that we continue to support those who are suffering and facing the challenges of this disease; and that we work hard to ensure that we find suitable treatment, assessment and a cure for this disease. Certainly, we should celebrate the victories that have been achieved to date in research to battle this important disease.

Yesterday, in many places around South Australia people came together to recognise this important event, and I was in Mount Gambier to join with some 250 women who met to celebrate the life of those they have lost and also to work hard for fundraising. On that occasion, which was one of so many around the state, they raised some $14,000 for research.

Kay Holloway—the chair of the committee—along with Evan Kosch, Claire Gunn, Kaye Chalk, Lynette Hirth, Jan Rothell—convened this important event. It was emceed by the indomitable Stan Thompson from the ABC in Mount Gambier. They also worked hard with those in the district who currently suffer from the disease. They have come together and have met annually since the loss of their dear friend, Leanne Kosch. Leanne's mother, Mrs Hurley, was present at yesterday's function, the great trooper that she is. It is just an example of one family's very distressing loss and their commitment to continue to work towards cancer awareness and, ultimately, its cure.

I especially acknowledge this disease because this week is Breast Cancer Awareness Week. That is not to say that there are not many other diseases that need our attention. As I will indicate, the bill that we are considering today relates to the issue of disease, cure and treatments, and it is front of mind for me in contributing to this debate.

Having identified breast cancer particularly for the purposes of my contribution to the parliament, I point out that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. There were 1,000 last year in South Australia. Some 100 men across Australia were also diagnosed with breast cancer. On average, that is between six to eight—and sometimes more—men in our own state who suffer from this disease. It is clearly the single biggest killer of women and, whilst men have to face prostate cancer as their single biggest cancer killer, it is one which is at the fore for women.

Early diagnosis and techniques have been advanced and are currently operational in services such as BreastScreen SA, which are to be commended for their tremendous influence on ensuring that we have a significant reduction in fatalities—some 41 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer—in the 15-odd years that we have had breast screening in South Australia. That is an enormous advancement, and it is one to be celebrated.

Whilst an enormous amount of scientific energy is put towards the advancement of treatments—and there have been some terrific gains—they are still very often invasive. Whilst chemotherapy has been advanced to the point where we are able to direct the treatment to the offending cells and medications now have fewer side-effects, I think it is still fair to say that it is a cruel and inhumane means by which to treat this disease. A cure is yet to be found. It is perhaps still as evasive as ever, but we ought to continue to aspire to find a cure, and I will refer to that shortly.

There are many other areas of human need which we need to advance to ensure that we minimise human suffering. Type 1 diabetes is just another example, and I know that many members of this house have adopted young people in their electorates. Young Thomas Pitman is one of the children in my electorate who suffers from Type 1 diabetes. He has the painful and continuous treatment and the life-threatening symptoms from this condition. I know that other members in the chamber have taken on the responsibility to try to advance awareness and attract support for the development of techniques for treatment and also to find a cure in that area.

There are enormous challenges. There would not be a person in this chamber who is not familiar with or who has not suffered the loss of a friend or a family member who has been diagnosed with either a cancer or a condition—Alzheimer's and the many other conditions to which I will refer. People have been lost almost with the grief of knowing that currently there is not a cure for these deadly and disabling conditions and the heartbreak that it has caused those around us. We know that, whilst they are emotive words, there is still a very pressing need for us to deal with as humanely as possible the treatment and relief of suffering for those around us.

I will refer to the cancer component, and I was very interested to read an article published in The Economist in September this year, which refers to a potential cure for cancer, and certainly treatment options arising out of stem cell research. I refer to this article because we are debating a bill today which refers to our relaxing (I think would be the most inoffensive way of describing the legislation with which we are dealing) the rules in respect of the reproductive technology and to develop the cultivation and use of stem cells in research. I wish to share this article with the house so that members can appreciate the potential advances we have made in this area. The article, entitled 'Shooting Down Cancer', describes a theory that links stem cells with a way in which they may offer treatment of this disease. The article states:

Every age is afraid of plagues. For the most part, such plagues have been infections. The rich world, though, has brought infectious disease under control and, AIDS aside, the memory dims with every generation. Instead, the fear of disease has transferred itself to cancer. How to prevent it; and how to treat it if prevention has failed, fills the pages of newspapers. How this or that celebrity won or lost his or her battle with it seems to fill much of the rest. The military metaphor is not confined to newspapers. It is 37 years since Richard Nixon, then America's president, declared war on the disease. During that time, the prognosis for cancer patients has got a lot better. Scientists have refined old therapies and found new ones. Moreover, governments have waged a relentless public-health campaign against the biggest cause of cancer—the smoking of tobacco. The war, however, has never looked close to being won. Scan the horizon and there is no sign of a cure. Nor is there likely to be until the enemy is properly understood.

Though luck plays its part in medicine, as it does in warfare, the big breakthroughs usually come from dramatic shifts in understanding. It was not, for example, until Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch proved the connection between germs and infection that doctors realised that to cure such diseases you had to kill the germs. The germ theory of disease made sense of a collection of illnesses that obviously had things in common (a tendency to appear in waves, for example, or to pass from person to person) but were maddeningly different in their details. It took a while but proof of that theory led to antibiotics that can destroy a whole range of infections. For cancer, a similar moment of enlightenment may now have arrived. Like infections, cancers are prominent features in common, yet they are bafflingly different in their details. But, borrowing an idea from another part of biology, oncologists are coming to believe that most—possibly all—cancers involve stem cells, or something very like them. They are, in other words, caused and sustained by a small number of cells whose daughters grow into the tissue of a tumour rather than as the daughters of healthy stem cells grow into the normal tissues that make up a body.

This opens new ways of thinking about and treating cancers. If the stem cells are eradicated, the rest of a tumour may die off. And if the secondary tumours—the truly feared killers in many forms of cancer—are the result of stem cells escaping from a primary tumour, as looks likely, then this knowledge may make them yield more easily to treatment.

This discovery is not a cure. But it does point the way towards one or, at the least, towards better therapies. Some might be in action soon. For example, it seems that cancer stem cells are less vulnerable to radiation than other cancer cells because their DNA repair mechanisms are better. Radiotherapy might thus be made more effective against them by dosing them with existing drugs that inhibit DNA repair. Some existing drugs which are known to interfere with stem cells' biochemical pathways could be used to attack them selectively.

Other treatments will take far longer—the time needed for clinical trials would see to that end and, in any case, a lot more research is in order. And there is the problem of designing drugs that can distinguish between cancer stem cells and those that spin off healthy tissues. But it all looks promising.

For those interested in that article, there are detailed descriptions of a history of work that has been done in this area to date, where legislation in a number of countries has permitted it, and particularly in the United States. It raises the important aspect of what members of our science community have come to us with in their development technologies that enable them to work towards this end; that is, to relieve human suffering in this manner.

The bills before us have some history. It is fair to say that, in the 1990s, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia all enacted legislation to ban human reproductive cloning and to regulate research on human embryos. We all remember the Dolly the sheep stories and the advances that were published around the world—and some of it was scary stuff. This state, along with two other states, moved quite quickly to regulate how we might research human embryos. It had come in the wake, of course, of our gene technology legislation, which dealt with the reproductive technologies to assist the fertilisation for couples who aspired to have children.

In 2002, the Council of Australian Governments agreed that there needed to be consistent legislation nationally and that that should be introduced. As a result, the Prohibition of Human Cloning Bill 2002 and the Research Involving Human Embryos Bill 2002 were passed by the commonwealth parliament. That legislation, I suppose, was a quite significant breakthrough in what had been a complete and utter ban on using human embryos for research, and we moved from a stage when there could be no interference with a human embryo, often kept in a frozen state for fertility purposes. You could not interfere with or harm—and certainly not kill—an embryo. That was changed, in a very restrictive manner, to enable spare fertilised eggs—that is, embryos—to be used for research purposes.

Some in this chamber will remember the debates: there were some passionate speeches in relation to this. I am old enough to remember the fiery debates of the 1980s in this chamber just to allow reproductive technologies to be used for women in assisting fertilisation. However, to move in the direction that had been predicted in those early days was a nightmare come true for some; that is, legislation would be passed to enable human embryos which were surplus to requirements (if I can put it as crudely as that) to be used for research. And so, we passed a law that said, if the parents—that is, the parties who had donated the genetic material to create the embryos—provided their written consent and they no longer required the embryos themselves, they could be handed over for the purpose of research and they could be destroyed for the purposes of that research.

It must be remembered that, in the context of the legislation, the licensed persons or corporations who had responsibility for the storage and care of these embryos were required by law to dispose of them—some would say flush them down the sink—at the end of 10 years, in any event. Some very passionate submissions were presented in this parliament by members about what they saw as the beginning of the end in allowing the spare embryos to be used for research. That is what happened in the 2002 legislation.

After the commonwealth parliament passed its legislation, each of the states followed suit and that was enacted across the country. I mention it because part of the commonwealth legislation was that there be a review within two years, in fact, from the date of its receiving the royal assent. Indeed, the review by the late John Lockhart AO QC was undertaken in 2005. In June that year, his honour was appointed to conduct that review into the legislation. In December 2005, he made 54 recommendations in relation to legalising therapeutic cloning but to continue the prohibition of reproductive cloning.

I mention his review particularly because, for the purposes of this debate, I think it is important to remember that, whilst his honour was given precedence in what is known as the Lockhart review, he was joined by a very broad group of people representing the church, ethicists, scientists, general consumers, the industry and people who were passionate either way about the advancement of this type of legislation. He worked with a very broad team, and I think it is to the credit of those people (as eminent as they were but very diverse in their views) that they were able to come together and present 54 recommendations in this report. I congratulate them on that and I do not think that it should be underestimated that this would have been a personal challenge for a number of them.

It is fair to say, I think, that the legislation which, ultimately, was introduced in the federal parliament went through a different process. Initially, Senator Kay Patterson introduced a private member's bill—the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006—to amend that legislation. It is fair to say that there was vigorous debate and the bill, as members would expect, took up a number of the recommendations, but essentially provided for the creation of embryonic stem cells from unfertilised eggs by a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning. There were a number of things that it did not do, and I will refer to those shortly. However, it is worth mentioning that the bill, treated as a conscience vote by the major parties, passed the Senate by 43 to 31 votes on 7 November 2006 and the House of Representatives by 82 to 62 votes on 6 December 2006.

Basically, supporters argued that the bill should be passed to enable more advanced research that might lead to disease cures and the matters that I have referred to earlier, while opponents argued that the process of therapeutic cloning was immoral and unacceptable, and raised a number of dangers—from the advance, ultimately, of human cloning to the trafficking of human stem cells, and the like. So, very passionate contributions were made to the debate.

I think it is important to appreciate that the commonwealth legislation that came into effect in mid-2007 maintained certain prohibitions. It ensured that there are still laws that prohibit a number of things, and I think it is important to remind the house what this legislation does. It reflects the recommendations of the Lockhart committee and what I see as some compromise in the recommendations it presented. Members should note that a number of the prohibitions in this South Australian legislation carry a penalty of up to 10 years' imprisonment for a breach, so this legislation does not treat breaches lightly.

It attracts a very serious penalty if someone attempted to place a human embryo clone in the human body or the body of an animal. There is still a prohibition on creating or developing a human embryo by fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm which contains genetic material provided by more than two persons. There is still a prohibition on developing a human embryo outside the body of a woman for more than 14 days. There remains a prohibition on developing a hybrid embryo beyond 14 days. I think these are very important restrictions.

There may be others in the debate who think we should go further and support a bill that would allow some of these things. There are certainly some in the community who think that this is a very important thing to do and that we should be enabling that to be advanced. I do not think that there is a sufficient case to support that. Clearly, the eminent members of the Lockhart review did not think so, either, and I am certainly persuaded by the recommendations they made in this regard.

In relation to the things that the federal bill permitted, and now what we are looking at in South Australia, I remind members that, of course, activities that allow for embryos to be used are done under a licence procedure. For the purpose of this debate we do not need to revisit that. There are very strict licensing obligations, guidelines to be followed and qualifications to be obtained from a national body before one can do any of this. One can apply for a licence to do the following:

use the excess artificial reproductive technology embryos (they are the spare embryos I referred to previously);

create human embryos other than by fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm, and use such embryos;

create embryos by a process other than fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm containing genetic material provided by more than two persons, and use such embryos;

create human embryos using precursor cells from a human embryo or a human foetus, and use such embryos;

undertake research and training involving the fertilisation of a human egg up to but not including the first mitotic state outside the body of a woman for the purpose of research or training;

create hybrid embryos by the fertilisation of an animal egg by human sperm and develop such embryos up to but not including the first mitotic division, provided that the creation or use is for the purposes of testing sperm quality and will occur in an accredited ART centre; and

create hybrid embryos by introducing the nucleus of a human cell into an animal egg and use of such embryos.

That was the gist of the legislation that went through the commonwealth parliament. Essentially what has occurred since then is that all the other states and territories, except South Australia, have either passed or certainly debated this legislation, the measure having been rejected in one instance (in Western Australia). So this legislation currently applies in each of the states and territories, except Western Australia and South Australia.

It is worth noting that Western Australia was the first state to debate and reject this legislation since the advance of some early research in induced pluripotent stem cells. I will refer to that later, but this is a new feature that has come into the debate in the past 12 months. Western Australia was the first state to consider this matter after publication of some of the advances in a particular area of research. That will undoubtedly create a significant impression upon those in this parliament who are dealing with the matter, but the Western Australian parliament, in May this year, voted down the bills and have therefore elected not to join with Australia in this regard. But there is a case for South Australia to proceed and for this parliament to support the bill introduced by the minister and, in saying that, I set out a number of things that relate to what we are doing here.

For the purposes of referring to this in summary, I cite a paper prepared by Dr Zoë Gill, from the Parliament Research Library here, titled Human Cloning and Stem Cell Research, which has been provided for members of parliament. It is an excellent paper that outlines the history, both legislatively and in the scientific community. I commend her for this paper and will refer to some extracts from it because she very precisely refers to a number of matters. Obviously the bill is here identified as being consistent with the federal position. In her paper Dr Gill summarises this bill as follows:

...this bill provides for the creation of human embryos other than by fertilisation and for their use, under licence, in research, training and commercial applications. In practical terms, the bill allows for research practices such as SCNT (or human cloning), parthenogenesis (the activation of eggs without sperm), the use of precursor cells (cells that have the potential to develop into an egg or sperm), the creation of embryos with the genetic material of more than two people, and the creation of human/animal hybrid embryos in limited circumstances. It also allows for previously prohibited ART training and research practices by changing the definition of a human embryo from the early stages of fertilisation to the later stages of fertilisation.

The paper also outlines an aspect of this bill which I had not fully understood until I read her paper, and it is instructive to note that in Dr Gill's paper she refers to the biological processes, including how embryos can be developed.

For the purposes of this debate, embryos have been and still remain critical to our scientific community for lots of reasons: foremost and uppermost in this debate is to be able to use them to harvest a type of stem cell which will be very helpful in many aspects of their research. We are reminded in this paper that embryos are developed in two ways: to create either reproductive embryos or research, otherwise known as therapeutic, embryos. Importantly for the debate—and it goes to the centre of why it is reasonable in our legislation now that we redefine embryos for the purposes of the biological process that underpin their development—she describes reproductive embryos, as they normally occur in the body, as follows:

Within nine to 12 hours after initial contact between a sperm and an oocyte [egg cell, that is] two pro-nuclei become visible; one containing the female's DNA and the other containing the man's DNA. Twenty to 22 hours after contact the pro-nuclei combine in a process known as syngamy, and it is at this stage that fertilisation is complete and a genetically unique entity is formed.

However, syngamy can only be visibly confirmed about one to three hours later, when the first mitotic division, otherwise known as a cleavage, is initiated. The entity is called a zygote during the process from syngamy to cleavage. The process of cleavage occurs in stages on days two to three after initial contact of sperm and egg, with individual cells, that is, blastomeres, cleaving into two approximately every 18 hours. The overall size of the entity does not change during the cleavage stage as the individual cells reduce in size. Generally by the fourth cleavage the entity is termed a morula. On days four to five the blastomeres pump fluid into a central cavity known as the blastocoele, which progressively increases in size to form the blastocyst. The outer layer of the blastocyst will form the placenta, while the inner layer will form the other tissue and body layers of the embryo. The blastocyst proceeds to implant on the uterine wall. Between days 12 to 14 embryogenesis begins, and by day 15 the primitive streak appears in the entity—a structure from which all subsequent embryonic and foetal tissue will develop.

The council argues:

That the appearances of the primitive streak is the point at which the body plan begins to become established and signals the commencement of gastrulation. From a biological perspective the appearance of the primitive streak is the first developmental time point at which a multi-cellar structure is formed that will uniquely develop into the new individual encoded by the new genome.

That is of the council within Dr Gill's summary. For me that was very instructive in consideration of this debate. It gave me a very clear understanding of what I had read in numerous scientific journals and reports, and it gives a basis on which the 14-day rule has been applied. Importantly, this is one which has been considered carefully by the Lockhart review panel and is reflective in what I could describe as the 14-day rule, which applies to the legislation we are currently considering.

The other matter which is summarised in Dr Gill's report relates to the reproductive embryos that are produced in the laboratory. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques, which have been around for some time, are used. It is fair to say that a number of different techniques have been developed but, overall, the whole process remains a fairly taxing one for those involved, particularly for the woman whose eggs need to be retrieved and harvested and then later reimplanted.

I was interested to read in Dr Gill's report that according to the statistics of successes—that is, those resulting in live deliveries from ART—only 17.1 per cent of cycles which had been started in 2005 were successful. I was disappointed to read that because, for those of us who were around in the 1980s when this issue was alive with debate and there were colourful contributions by all sorts of people, that was one area where there was a general feeling that, if it was going to proceed, it would help families to achieve having children where otherwise that had evaded them. We were hopeful that it would be a genuine benefit to them, and to find that only 17 per cent have been successful is rather sad. Nevertheless, it has been a wonderful opportunity and clearly brought joy to those who have been successful.

I mentioned before that spare embryos created under this procedure were allowed after the 2002-03 raft of legislation. The Lockhart review also looked at whether the use of these embryos was the best way to obtain outcomes. We know from reading the report that they found that some of the ART research facilitating the extraction of eggs from a woman's body and improving the BESST outcomes had been restricted by the 2002 regulatory system and that the definition of 'embryo' from the appearance of the two pronuclei and the prohibition on the creation of pathogenic embryos, hybrid embryos and embryos from the genetic material of more than two people placed heavy restrictions on ART research.

I find it interesting that this is not just a question of finding a cure for a disease. The science community is trying to improve the technologies available to women to enable them to have children and this is also offered as a basis upon which we should consider amendment to the legislation. I am pleased to read about that because I would like to think that what we do in the parliament—if decisions are made to support the advancement of scientific opportunities—would be for a good reason, but I am also pleased to find that it is advanced as a means of helping women with infertility, given the rather disappointing statistics.

I also wish to briefly refer to the human cloning aspect to the extent of somatic cell nuclear transfer, which is essentially what will be allowed in this legislation if it is passed. As simply as it can be put, I suppose, the egg from the female has its nucleus taken out, a cell from another person is put into the nucleus of the egg, and there is stimulation of development. This provides for a human embryo clone, and it currently offends the legislation that applies in South Australia. According to Dr Gill, the parthenogenesis technique involves the following:

Under this technique no DNA is added to the human egg cell. Rather, the egg cell is stimulated to undergo spontaneous activation, effectively cloning the woman whose egg it is. However, it is unclear that this process can produce viable embryos. Rather, this process may assist in researching the maturation of eggs or in the production of stem cells.

I will come back to that later. I also wish to address the whole purpose of why we are cloning. In summary, we know from reports that obviously we have reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning. What I was interested to read on the potential research use of embryos is how we might be assisted by this, given the extraordinary hurdle that many would have to leap, including myself, to support legislation that also would create concern and offence to some in the community.

In summary, I place on the record for those following the debate that the stem cells are the holy grail of this research, I suppose, in that we are looking at being able to provide plenty for researchers to use. They are really special because they are able to renew themselves and differentiate into other cell types. Obviously, the medical sciences tell us that this is important, as I say, in dealing with regenerative therapies for diseases such as heart disease, spinal cord injuries, diabetes type 1, stroke, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and so on. These would also help in understanding the different characteristics of cell types, the features of diseases at a cellular level, and the effect of chemicals and drugs on various cell types.

It is important to note, however, that even in the Lockhart review caution was added to say that this does not mean that by passing legislation such as this we will suddenly have a cure for everything or that we will suddenly have effective treatments; years of research have to be done. The other things identified in the Lockhart review were the four different types of stem cells: the totipotent stem cells, which apparently can do everything and develop into just about any tissue that you want; pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into multiple areas; multipotent stem cells, which can have a few different cell types and can perhaps change from blood forming cells in bone marrow to different types of blood cells; and unipotent stem cells, which can give rise to one cell type, which can become skin or cornea, so they are very narrow. Dr Gill confirms in her summary the following:

The pluripotent stem cells offer the greatest research potential due to their ability to differentiate into numerous cell types and yet not form a whole organism.

I was again pleased to read this because, if we are going to talk about the technologies or procedures that we permit in legislation such as this, it seems to me that it is very important that we restrict this, not just by the 14-day rule but also by the nature of what will be developed.

In that way the organism, I suppose, is restricted from being able to develop into an animal or human, and this is very important. Clearly, the legislation is intended to prohibit this so as not to allow an organism to become a living being, existing independently of the test tube. Again, that was important to me, and it is also important in relation to the advances that have been made and published concerning embryonic stem cell research since the latter part of 2007.

Internationally, there have been some examples in this regard, involving not just Japanese research but also I think a number of people around the world who have been working on this issue. There have been some published papers on the capacity for scientists to produce pluripotent stem cells (these are the good ones for research) without actually using an embryo at all. My understanding is that, in the Japanese case, it was done with the skin cells of an adult.

Certainly, this is something that has been taken up and presented as an alternative to what we are being asked to do today—that is, to advance the possibility of developing a pool or being able to harvest pluripotent stem cells from organisms (in this case other cells) that have nothing to do with embryos. That would enable us to avoid the debate altogether in respect of the matter involving a serious conscience issue for those who are opposed to this measure. I think everyone in the chamber is concerned to make sure that we do not do things that might have unintended or dangerous consequences. We need to look at a number of things regarding this matter, including the moral implications.

We would not have legislation at all if this was not a very pressing issue in this country. Even though some other countries have been, I think, significantly lax in this regard, Australia has kept a very tight rein on this issue (with good reason) and there is no reason why we should relax our scrutiny of any of the legislation that comes before us in this regard. Importantly, we are considering here the opportunity to reprogram ordinary cells and create pluripotent stem cells without having to deal with the challenging aspects involving embryos and, in particular, their creation and destruction.

Members of parliament have had the benefit of a number of presentations from different people asking us to consider abandoning any perpetuation of the commonwealth program that started in 2005 as a result of the Lockhart review, and to wait for the benefits of these new discoveries, and everything will be just fine. A number of us have gone back to the scientific community and said, 'Why wouldn't you use this new procedure? It sounds fantastic.' Their answer essentially is, 'Yes, this is a really important initiative, and obviously it is something that the world is watching. It is an opportunity to avoid what is currently a very expensive and controversial procedure in the development of embryos.' Indeed, harvesting female eggs, developing pluripotent stem cells in them and going through that process is a very expensive, time-consuming and uncomfortable procedure (especially for women).

If there is something that we can do that is less offensive to the community and cheaper and quicker, we will certainly look at it and we would like to advance it, but at this stage we may be 10 or 15 years away from being able to identify whether these early initiatives will actually come to fruition. Just as I described in relation to the cancer and stem cell work that is being undertaken in the United States, some of these things work and some of them do not. Sometimes the research goes on for decades and they fail.

Those members of the scientific community who advocate our support of this legislation say that we cannot just wait for this to occur. We need to move on, with the significant restrictions that will still be in place in this legislation, and we need to have the opportunity to advance the research. It may be a long time before this other comes through. If it does, that is fine but, at the moment, having listened to the debate on both sides, I indicate to the house that I think we must, in all conscience, proceed with the bill with the restrictions that are placed on it. The other thing that I found of interest was that:

Embryonic stem cells can potentially be taken from the reproductive embryos or the excess ART embryos. However, these stem cells would not provide a genetic match to the person for whom the stem cell therapy was being created and would not carry the relevant disease being studied. A genetic match may be achieved by taking embryonic stem cells from the embryos created through SCNT using the genetic material of the person for whom the stem cell therapy is being created.

What does this mean? It simply means that what we have been using to date from the stem cells out of the embryos actually has a limitation because it is someone else's DNA that is being used, potentially, for someone else's treatment and that means that there is the possibility, of course, of rejection and the difficulty of people waiting for a suitable matching donor. That is another limitation, I suppose, of which I have been made aware during the course of this debate which is highly restrictive, and I certainly hope that the reforms proposed under this legislation will be able to circumvent that. I again refer to part of the Lockhart report that, in summary, states:

Adult stem cells do not face the same rejection difficulties as they can be derived from the person needing the stem cell treatment. However, as noted above, they are much less flexible than embryonic stem cells. A new technique involving gene manipulation and stimulation is being developed to create what are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), that is, adult stem cells that act like embryonic stem cells. However, this process is in its very early stages and it still involves a number of risks such as triggering cancer.

Again, we have consideration of the induced pluripotent stem cell process. If that process is developed and it works—and we are yet to see whether it does—that is fantastic but a number of triggers need to be looked at. It is interesting to see that, if we can advance down the line of being able to, say, place the DNA of a victim of a particular disease into an egg, under the new processes we might actually be able to advance treatment and/or potential management of the condition for those who are suffering from it.

There are a number of other speakers who wish to contribute to this debate. It is a difficult decision for a number of our members of parliament, and it is one that has vexed me. This will not be the last time this type of challenge is put to parliament—to review and, in this case, extend and allow the exploration of techniques that have been a serious challenge to a number of us—and in this instance I am prepared to support the bill.

I thank the government for the briefings that were arranged. The minister organised and joined us in a number of those briefings in his office, and I appreciate that. Other members of parliament also arranged different briefings which I attended, and I have a very high regard for those who put submissions to us in the parliament from each side of the debate. They have been very instructive—certainly for me, and I know other colleagues have also appreciated them—so I do thank the minister for facilitating a number of those; I believe one of his colleagues in another place also facilitated some others. It was very important that we received the benefit of those briefings.

In concluding my contribution, I would like to say that I wish every success to those in the scientific community around the world who are already progressing other techniques, including the induction of pluripotent stem cells, which is (pardon the pun) in the embryonic research stage but which will be valuable in the advance of science.

A very extensive contribution was made by Dr Gill with her research paper on this subject and on the different situations that prevail around the world—although I will not repeat it as members will have had the opportunity to read it—and I am mindful of the fact that if South Australia does not join up with this legislation we, along with Western Australia, will potentially miss out on being part of the research development in this important area. I say that because the minister, in his second reading speech, alerted us to the fact that South Australia's currently licensed providers of this service will possibly be eligible to undertake research as corporations, and that that may not apply to the university licensees or others who may apply for a licence. That in itself is of concern to me whereby, while we are setting up a scenario allowing certain people to at least apply for a licence to undertake these techniques, others within our own scientific community here in South Australia may be prevented from doing so. I do not believe that is fair, and I think it is a situation about which all sorts of people in trade practices and the like would probably have something to say. Nevertheless, it raises challenges for us here in South Australia.

If it were a really bad law, a dangerous law, one that I thought we should not be progressing, then I would probably be standing here arguing that we should not do it—and it would not matter if a few people missed out or some slipped through the loop. Obviously, there are arguments for both sides of that scenario, but South Australia is a state that has been revered for its research in the past and I am keen to maintain that position.

I believe I have even heard the minister, or certainly the Premier, say, as he did last week at the opening of the biotechnology centre at Thebarton, that South Australia has produced more Nobel Prize winners than any other state in the country. That is something of which we should be proud. However, we must also ensure the viability of those entities in the commercial environment which take up the risk of research and also the opportunity of the fortunes that may come with it and that we make that a level playing field for all. So, on balance, that is another factor that confirms my support for this bill. I thank the parliament for its indulgence for the time I have taken to present this.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (12:05): I rise in support of this important legislation. The bill we discussed in 2003 brought forward some of the science and certainly enabled medical scientists to progress their knowledge of early embryonic development and some areas of stem cell research.

Versions of this bill have been passed by most other legislatures and certainly by the federal parliament. I was a bit worried for a while that the South Australian parliament might not have been given the opportunity to debate this legislation, because there was a considerable delay between other states passing their legislation and the federal government passing its legislation. In fact, back in June 2007 I had parliamentary counsel draw up a private member's bill, namely, the Statutes Amendment (Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and Regulation of Research Involving Human Embryos) Bill.

That is how concerned I was that legislation allowing these developments was not going to be presented to us, but I congratulate the government for having the courage to bring it forward. I know there are people in the community who do have some ethical issues with this. Their own beliefs constrain their ability to comprehend the benefits that will come from this legislation. The government introduced its bill in October 2007, and it is now 12 months after its introduction that we are debating the bill. Nevertheless, the bill it is here and it is on its way.

I will not be asking questions in committee about this issue, but there are a couple of things I do need to put on notice straightaway for the minister to come back to me on. I want to clear up a bit of a difference between what would have been in my bill and what is in the government's bill. Clause 6(1) of my bill would have created an offence of importing or exporting a human embryo clone, as follows:

A person commits an offence if the person intentionally imports a human embryo clone into South Australia.

My bill imposed a penalty of 15 years' imprisonment for that offence. Subsection (2) provided:

A person commits an offence if the person intentionally exports a human embryo clone from South Australia.

I do not see that anywhere in the government's bill, and I am a bit concerned about that, because I think there might be a loophole there that needs to be closed.

Another measure in my bill was related to the ability to create hybrid embryos, and I will talk a bit more about the issue of hybrid embryos in a few moments. My bill provided for a licence to create hybrid embryos created by introducing the nucleus of a human cell into an animal egg for no longer than 14 days.

I see that that is contained in clause 19A(3)(b) of the government's bill. However, in the minister's second reading explanation he stated:

Creating hybrid embryos by combining human and animal cells will remain completely prohibited, with the single exception of a diagnostic test for sperm quality which will be permitted only under licence in reproductive medicine clinics.

Whether that is an omission in the second reading explanation or whether I have failed to comprehend it, I would like that clarified as well. Certainly, those two aspects are something that I need to be clear about so that this legislation will to do everything we want it to do.

The issue of hybrid embryos is one I have had a keen interest in for a number of years, and this interest was further fuelled by the fact that the British government allowed the creation of hybrid embryos. I refer to a document entitled 'The Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority' put out by the British government in April 2007. It talks about hybrids and chimeras. The issue with a lot of research into artificial reproduction technology in human areas is the shortage of human eggs. That is an understandable predicament because in most cases the people involved in artificial reproductive technology (IVF, as most people would know it) are keen to have the eggs collected, the ART performed and then have the embryos either used or stored for their own purposes. The availability of eggs for research is quite limited.

The way around that is by using animal eggs; replacing the animal nuclei with the nucleus from a human cell. In most cases that is a somatic cell. We have various names for this, some of it is called cellular nuclear transfer or, in this particular case, it is referred to as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The thing you create when you do this is a hybrid. You are using tissues from an animal and tissues from a human. I do not see any moral or ethical issues, in my own mind, with this because there is that limit—at 14 days the tissue is destroyed—but it does allow researchers this vast bank of material that they can use for their research.

The moment you mention the word 'hybrid', particularly when you are talking about combining a human nucleus with an animal egg, people start thinking of monsters like the Minotaur. That is not the case. The fact and the fiction are miles apart, the perceptions and the reality are miles apart, but unfortunately in politics perceptions often become reality. So, it is important that we keep a cool head on this issue and make sure that we are doing the very best to enable our scientific community to develop what will be life-saving technology.

It is all about saving lives. It is all about making sure that people in our society have the ability to access medical technology that is going to improve their lives. We have had examples of the various diseases that may be able to be treated. The possibility of making quadriplegics and paraplegics fully able again is another exciting opportunity.

I refer to the paper put out by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in England. It has put very succinctly in its document some of the concepts that we are talking about here. As I said, when most people think of hybrids or chimeras, they do not think of cytoplasmic hybrid embryos created in stem cell research, instead they imagine the kind of half-human/half-animal monsters like the Minotaur of myths and legends.

In real life we do have hybrids. The creatures we would be most familiar with are mules and hinnies, which are a cross between horses and donkeys. We also have ligers, which are a cross between lions and tigers. In these cases the offspring are infertile—these are true hybrids. In this legislation, you can create a hybrid organism where you are using human sperm to fertilise an animal egg. That is purely used for sperm quality testing, but it is producing a very early stage hybrid. So, we are doing it already, but in this one particular circumstance. What I would like to see is that ability expanded where we can be using somatic cell nuclear transfer but the nucleus is being transferred into an evacuated animal egg.

The other types of hybrids that can be created are by inserting animal genes into early embryos. While I do not see any need for this, from my reading it is a technique that is out there. Certainly, I am aware of human genes being inserted into animal embryos so that you then get transgenic animals which produce proteins and disease profiles that can help scientists study diseases and various ailments and then, hopefully, come up with cures for them.

I think probably the best example, and one of the immediate benefits we are aware of, is the fact that blood clotting proteins are being produced in some animals. I do not know of any case where animal genes have been inserted into human embryos. Certainly, I would have thought that that was neither permissible nor scientifically worth while.

Another form of research which has been talked about and which is technically possible is the creation of chimeras, when genetic material from a human or an animal is inserted into another human or animal embryo. If you want to be truly pedantic, many of us are chimeras because we have had organ transplants or blood transfusions. None of us would stop those, but we all get quite iffy about creating chimeras at the molecular level and start to imagine abstract and esoteric ideas of creating monsters. It is not that: it is all about scientific research.

We need to recognise that this research is very valuable to everybody; it is not just so that scientists can obtain scientific grants and do their own thing. To enable the research to go ahead, I certainly strongly urge all members to support the legislation, but I know that some will not. However, they should take heed of documents such as the British government's report on the creation of hybrids and chimeras, which contains some good things about the benefits of therapeutic cloning.

I remind the house again that, in my second reading contribution, I supported therapeutic cloning in 2003. In 2007, the Royal Society also supported therapeutic cloning, and it also supported cytoplasmic hybrid embryos and the creation of human/animal hybrids for early-stage research. However, I certainly agree with the 14-day period when the hybrid is being studied.

The world is moving on and, in a moment, I will talk about induced pluripotent stem cells. It is interesting to note that the British Labour government supported this legislation and going a little bit further with human/animal hybrid embryos. In April this year, it was reported in TheGuardian that the first British human/animal embryos had been created by scientists. They were cytoplasmic hybrids because a human nucleus was inserted into a cow egg. The article states that the only reason they used cow eggs (and this is the reason I stated before) was a scarcity of human eggs. They were not creating Frankenstein's monster: it was all about the ability to further this research and ensure that scientists have the ability to use the material for this research.

The big thing everybody is talking about now is that this legislation is not required and that it is out of date because we all know that Shinya Yamanaka, from a Japanese university, has developed the ability to stimulate cells to act in a similar way to embryonic stem cells. It is interesting that Yamanaka's work involved the use of viruses, injecting genes that had been inserted into viruses. Those viruses were put into the somatic cells to stimulate cells to act like embryonic stem cells.

It sounds good and it sounds easy but, when you start reading the detail of this sort of research, there are a lot of holes in it. I will quickly read some of the five or six issues associated with this sort of research. One of the main issues is that this technology is in the very early stages and employs relatively crude methods for achieving the result. It requires the delivery of factors to the target cells using the virus-based delivery methods more commonly associated with 'gene therapy' approaches. As gene-therapy based methods have a poor track record in the clinic and negative public perception, use of these methods is a substantial limitation of the technology.

The other issue is that the ability for cells to form all cell types in the body has yet to be established—so iPS is not the silver bullet that everybody talks about. While several studies report the ability to form the three primary cell types that exist during embryonic development that are starting materials for all cell types, the differentiation potential beyond this has yet to be studied with iPS cells. As such, it is possible that stem cells produced using this approach may be limited or biased in their differentiation potential and, as a result, may not be applicable to use in the treatment of all clinical indications that could be treated using alternative stem cell based therapies.

The long-term genetic stability of cells produced using iPS methods has not yet been established. Given that the starting cells are from an 'adult' source, the genetic stability and predisposition to forming tumours is not characterised.

The formation of tumours in animals has been reported by a number of studies using cells generated by iPS methods. One of the four defined factors has been identified as the direct cause of this, and efforts are underway to define ways to eliminate the requirement of this factor. Despite this, formation of tumours as a result of use of these cells is a serious concern and a substantial limitation of the method.

iPS is an exciting development. The reason is was developed was because of not only people's ethical concerns, but also the fact that there had been a lot of research already done on embryonic stem cell therapies and on the microscopic level of examining what is happening during fertilisation and during cell development and differentiation.

So, iPS is good; it is a good development, but it is not ready yet. It will not be ready for 5, 10 or 15 years—who knows—if at all. So, we need to make sure that the ability of scientists to use currently available technology will not be hamstrung and that the scientific community—particularly here in South Australia—will not leave to go interstate, where this legislation has already been passed, or to England where broader legislation has been passed.

This is a valuable piece of legislation. It is something that I strongly support, and I look forward to its passage through both houses so that South Australians can benefit from this legislation. I strongly support it.

Ms SIMMONS (Morialta) (12:23): I have just a few comments to add to this debate. I will be opposing this bill. In fact, I believe strongly that recent scientific advances—as the member for Morphett has just discussed—will make this bill redundant in the near future. As members know, I am a practising Catholic and I cannot in all honesty support this bill, and I thank the Premier in his wisdom for making this a conscience vote on our side.

The member for Bragg has referred to an excellent research paper prepared for parliament by Dr Zoë Gill. As Dr Gill says, this debate usually centres on the moral status of the human embryo against the value of scientific research that could potentially lead to the cure of numerous debilitating congenital diseases. This dichotomy is no different for me to contemplate than for others. She adds that there is also a growing voice concerning the impact of these research practices on women, who are the source of the eggs central to many of these procedures.

The Australian Stem Cell Centre, which advocates for the bill, has itself highlighted that announcements in the past 18 months regarding the use of adult stem cell research are very exciting. This is a very difficult issue and, like many, I have friends and colleagues who have suffered, and are currently suffering, from some of the diseases that can potentially benefit from embryonic stem cell treatment. However, I cannot bring myself to advocate the use of human embryos for this treatment, especially when we are so close to using both adult stem cells and pluripotent stem cells.

We are told that induced pluripotent stem cells (or iPSCs, as they are known) is a method by which adult stem cells taken from the skin, the blood or the spine, in the same way as a lumbar puncture is administered, are induced towards a more flexible or embryonic-like state. This discovery is very important to this debate and it is an exciting discovery that I am told was welcomed by scientists around the world. Stem cell science is an extremely fast-moving field of research, with new breakthroughs being reported almost daily. Personally, I wish researchers into adult stem cell therapy speedy results, but I cannot support the use of human embryos for this research.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT