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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-03-18 Daily Xml
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Motions

Human Organs Trafficking

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (11:03): By leave, I move my motion in an amended form, with the select committee that has been proposed to report back on 3 December, the last day of sitting this year:

That this house—

(a) appoints a joint committee to inquire into and report on the operation of the Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1983, and whether it should be amended in respect to the trafficking in human organs and any related matters;

(b) in the event of a joint committee being appointed, the House of Assembly shall be represented by three members of the House of Assembly, of whom two shall form a quorum of House of Assembly members necessary to be present at all sittings of the committee; and

(c) sends a message to the Legislative Council transmitting the foregoing resolution and requesting its concurrence thereto.

I rise to discuss the foundation of the establishment of this select committee today based on my experience of having a large multicultural electorate in the north of Adelaide. Basically, the select committee will establish an update of the operation of the Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1983 to see whether it should be amended in respect of the trafficking in human organs and any related matters; and, in the event that we have some suggestions, they will be brought back to the house.

In my community in the north of Adelaide, I have many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian constituents. During my time as the member for Taylor over the last five years, I have had many conversations with them and, indeed, travelled to Vietnam and Cambodia in October 2013 to discover some facts relating to this issue.

Human trafficking is an insidious and nefarious trade that happens around the world and affects people from all walks of life, but particularly from countries where there are poor economic outcomes for their own constituents and citizens. It can range from sex trafficking to workers caught in difficult work environments. One of the most tragic outcomes is, perhaps, organ trafficking, where people sell their organs and they are trafficked around the world for people who are in need of health transplantations.

One idea behind this committee, and is well known and well established because organ harvesting takes place in a number of ways around the world, is that we drive down demand by making it illegal for citizens of Australia and South Australia to participate in organ trafficking or organ harvesting by driving up demand. This is about closing the supply demand part of the economic cycle and making it illegal, just as it is for Australians to participate in the sex trade abroad with young and vulnerable people. It is to make sure that the people we are involved with, as our near neighbours, are not put through this hideous trade and to make sure that we in this country are good neighbours and good South Australians. That will be one of the major focuses of this committee, that we bring some recommendations back to update the act. So, I seek the support of the house for this motion.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (11:06): Medical advances have improved the success of organ transplantation. As such, there has been a rise in illegal harvesting and trafficking of organs which has followed. There is considerable growth in the organ harvesting market and that has led to the rise of organ theft and, indeed, killing for organs. This growing market is victimising some of the world's most poor and vulnerable people, especially in South-East Asian countries which neighbour us. I am informed that organ trafficking accounts for between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of the kidney transplants performed annually throughout the world. A small number of cases involving Australians travelling overseas for an organ transplant, or 'medical tourism', have been identified. Medical tourism as a term, in my view, perhaps does not capture the horror the situation entails for those whose organs are harvested and the extraordinarily vulnerable situation they have been in and the horrors that can follow.

There are limitations in any legislation that can be made by the South Australian parliament. We can, potentially, prohibit citizens and residents of South Australia undertaking activities overseas via an extraterritorial provision, but enforcement can only occur in South Australia. It would be a challenge for us to prevent people from genuinely establishing domicile in another state, territory or country either before or after the procedure and potentially avoiding any penalties we might apply. I think the motion by the member for Taylor is the right way to go forward.

I think a committee to investigate this nefarious trade, this horrific traffic in human misery, is the best way for us to go forward. I have had discussions with the member for Davenport, who I suspect may be about to make a contribution on this himself, and our joint party room has agreed to support the establishment of this committee. We look forward to its deliberations on working out the best way forward for the parliament to deal with this matter in a bipartisan fashion, and I am sure they will do a terrific job. I thank the member for Taylor for bringing this motion forward.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (11:09): I also rise today to support the motion by the member for Taylor to refer the bill to a joint select committee of the house. On my understanding, the committee is intended to look at a possible prohibition of any resident of South Australia from receiving a human organ that has been unethically obtained. As we know, this is a practice that happens around the world, particularly in South-East Asia, and is of great concern to many of us on that moral dilemma.

The World Health Organisation collects data from about 95 member states on both legal and illegal sold human organ transplants. Recent WHO estimates suggest that within those 95 member countries approximately 107,000 sold organs are transplanted annually throughout the world. International health professionals associated with WHO estimate that up to 10 per cent of those organs are illegally obtained. Given this data, the real figure is likely to be higher as we know that many parts of the world do not participate in providing reasonable data. Similarly, world health organisations have conservatively estimated that the transplant tourism industry—that is travelling abroad to obtain an organ—makes up 5 per cent of the international organ transplant market.

To me it is clear from a number of the studies that the demand for human organs far outstrips supply. That is not surprising given the increasing burden of diseases such as diabetes which can contribute to renal failure. In that respect, estimates suggest that up to 70 per cent of transplanted organs are kidneys, and this is what we see in illegal trafficking of organs as well.

While ethically obtaining organs for transplant within our own community should be encouraged—and I encourage all members and all South Australians to be organ donors—it is also necessary to curb unethical demand for organs overall. The proposed select committee will look into this issue, especially within Asia and Africa and other parts of the world struggling to control the export of unethically obtained organs. I support the referral of the bill to a joint house committee and look forward to its findings and to see what we here in South Australia can do to curb this unethical practice.

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (11:11): I thank the members for Morialta and Davenport for their contributions, and I look forward to working alongside my colleagues in this house. I should mention that this is a joint house committee. My upper house colleague Tammy Franks and I have discussed this at length over time and I know there have been meetings in the previous parliament from interested parties concerned about illegal organ harvesting around the world. I know the Speaker has had an interest in this matter in the past with China and its prison population. There have been some developments in that space recently. I look forward to the upper house making contributions and joining with colleagues to move this forward.

In closing, I would like to tell a story that Geraldine Cox (the head of the Sunrise orphanages in Cambodia) spoke about at a fundraising luncheon that I attended, and it has been anecdotally spoken about in many of the Buddhist temples that I frequent in my electorate. It is about a child called Noodles. This child was a foundling child and was at the local Noodles store in a Cambodian town. Geraldine often has people telling her about foundling children. She went away on a fundraising mission and came back to see Noodles. In that time Noodles had had his eyes harvested. That child had gone from a sighted to a non-sighted life and was still at the Noodles store waiting for a new life.

This may not seem a big issue to us but it is a profoundly important human rights issue that this parliament can do something positive about, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in working towards that.

Motion carried.

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