13 FEBRUARY 2007
“The Barry family frequently had meagre fare while their intended meal, and often their shoes, were given to Carlton residents who came to the door hungry. My uncles and aunts remember as small children often waking up with unknown children sharing their bed, put there quietly late at night, while homeless families were found more permanent accommodation.”
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) —
Thank you President. I offer my congratulations for your election to the chair and to all Members for their election.
I would like to first acknowledge and thank all those heroic Australians who over the last century have risked and even given their lives in defence of our country. I would also like to thank and pay tribute to the volunteers who have been courageously fighting bush fires in Victoria.
Today, I would like to thank those who have helped me, explain my political motivations, and tell you about the DLP and how I hope to make a contribution in this Parliament.
I am very glad to have won, but sorry that it was at the expense of Elaine Carbines whom I know to be a very hard working, honest and talented woman. I would also like to acknowledge Samantha Macintosh of the Nationals and Marcus Ward of the Greens for their intelligence and generosity of spirit.
This is the first election win for the Democratic Labor Party anywhere for thirty six years and the first in this Parliament for fifty one years. I am strongly aware that many DLP people have deserved a seat in Parliament much more than me. I am reminded in particular of Jim Brosnan, and the late, great Frank Dowling, whom it was my privilege and honour to know when I was a boy.
I recently had the great pleasure of meeting my predecessor in this Parliament, Mr Frank Scully, DLP MP from 1955 to 1958. He is 87 years old now but his intelligence, courtesy, charm and goodness are immediately apparent. I will strive to be worthy of his example.
The people of Western Victoria brought me here, and I am grateful. In the cities of Geelong and Ballarat and small towns like Nhil and Camperdown, from Melton and Werribee to the border there are people who voted DLP and people who helped. I am not a Western Victorian but have been genuinely impressed by the people of Western Victoria. They really do represent the best of the Australian tradition. Western Victorians see strangers as opportunities rather than as threats.
I thank those parties which gave me their second preferences — People Power, Country Alliance and Family First.
My thanks also to the Parliamentary staff who have been welcoming and extremely helpful and to all Members who have welcomed me to this Parliament. Coming in from outside, I have been impressed by the intelligence, obvious decency and dedication of many Members from all sides of this chamber.
There are individuals I must thank, including my running mates, Clare and David Power and Leanne and Michael Casanova of Ballarat. I would also like to thank Max Crockett of Geelong, my uncle Bill Barry Junior, Alan Guilfoyle of Melbourne, Pat Healy of Hamilton and DLP stalwarts John Mulholland and Pat Crea. I thank my friend Stephen Williams who contributed his expertise in public relations. His intelligence and creativity were crucial in overcoming the media's resistance to covering my campaign.
I would like to thank my parents—Mary and Frank Kavanagh. They did not have a lot to give materially but they did give their children strong values, including a love of learning and respect for education. Their love, care, worry and sacrifice raised six good citizens. My mother has been quite active in politics for most of her life.
My mother's parents, Bill and Mary Barry were important figures in the DLP story. My grandfather was president of the Carlton branch of the ALP from the age of eighteen and a member of the other House for twenty three years. He was Labour Parliamentary secretary for seventeen years and held several portfolios as well as being a Melbourne City Councillor for sixteen years and Labor leader in the Council. At its first election, in 1955, the DLP was often called "the Barry Party".
My grandfather was of convict stock - his grandfather, James Barry, was said to have been transported to Van Diemen's Land for agitating against the British occupation of Ireland. My grandfather's father, William Barry, I will call him, devoted his life to improving the lives of working people. He was instrumental in establishing a number of unions and the Labour Party itself in Tasmania and the Carlton branch where he was campaign manager for FH Bromley who was elected Labour Member for Carlton in 1892. William Barry's union activities marked him in the Depression that began in 1896 and he was forced to move to the goldfields of WA, where he worked for Federation.
My grandfather, Bill Barry, sought and used his positions to help battlers. He fought for the mentally ill and for improvements to 'sustenance' during the Great Depression. He was responsible for locating the Royal Children's hospital where it now stands, helped greatly to win the Olympic Games for Melbourne and campaigned tirelessly against capital punishment. As Minister for Health he introduced a comprehensive range of measures which resulted in the near eradication of tuberculosis, initiatives that were copied in other states. These were among many other political achievements.
My grandmother, Mary Barry, was also a member of the ALP for decades. While still a teenager, she was an activist against conscription and for Ireland's liberation. She led Labour Women for many years, in an honorary capacity, and was on the ALP executive - the only woman, during the Split. After the Split, she continued working for the Australian people, through the DLP, until her death. She succeeded in having women prisoners moved out of Pentridge. She fought with all she had for those condemned to execution, organised for relief during the Second World War and successfully lobbied for child endowment and other assistance to families.
My grandparents' qualities, including their enthusiasm for helping others, partly represented the times in which they lived. They worked not only in the Party and the Parliament but, in the then existing Labour tradition, they also helped the disadvantaged within their home. "No-one in Carlton will sleep outside" campaigned my grandfather during the Great Depression. With support from others, my grandparents housed the homeless, fed the hungry and clothed the desperate - literally. My grandmother's skills as a seamstress were often utilised altering my grandfather's clothes so that constituents could attend job interviews. The Barry family frequently had meagre fare while their intended meal, and often their shoes, were given to Carlton residents who came to the door hungry. My uncles and aunts remember as small children often waking up with unknown children sharing their bed, put there quietly late at night, while homeless families were found more permanent accommodation.
My grandparents are the people effectively referred to by John Cain Junior recently as "sectarian serpents". As to this particular assertion I would like to draw attention to the observations of Robert Murray, the most authoritative and objective commentator on the Split. In his book, "The Split", referring to John Cain Senior of course, he says, “this might be said even of Cain – bitterness against the Barry Group flowed over, all too often to be reinforced by deep seated religious prejudices, which came to the surface under pressure" (p.248).
The Australian labour movement of the nineteenth century was the true origin of the Democratic Labor Party. In the mid 1950s however the extreme left attempted to take over the ALP, especially to prevent parts of the Labour Party continuing to counter Communist attempts to control Australia's unions. The extremists were aided by the mental state of the ALP's federal leader who took their side and purported to have the legitimate Labour executive in Victoria sacked. The utterly bogus and unconstitutional nature of the persecution was confirmed by the ALP's own Jim McLelland and Clyde Cameron shortly before their deaths. The eventual result was that a majority, sixty percent, of Labour Party members in Victoria (and nearly eighty percent of Labour Party branches) were expelled or left in sympathy to form what became the Democratic Labor Party.
The DLP was clearly then, anything but a "splinter group". Nor was the DLP the instigator of the Split, DLP people were its victims.
Dozens of Parliamentarians gave up careers. Their sacrifice was for a principle, a correct one, now vindicated by history. In my view this has given the DLP an extraordinary legacy of courage and nobility. When I was a child I thought that the DLP's founders were heroes who had sacrificed so much, including their livelihoods, to oppose barbarism. I still think so.
DLP people were sometimes treated despicably both during and after the Split by the more extreme of their opponents. To the greatly limited extent that it is my right to respond to this, I offer the observation that the prayer which begins the business of this House each sitting day makes it perfectly clear that we dare not even ask for forgiveness for ourselves without first forgiving others.
Anti-Communists are almost invariably portrayed in our media as misguided lunatics. Whatever the ridicule and derision however, the DLP's assessment of the nature of Communism was accurate. The DLP saw Communism for what it was - economically primitive, inherently brutal and expansionist, and by its nature, murderous on a mass scale.
I have experienced at first hard and even felt, painfully, some of the practical manifestations of Communism in other parts of the world. It was partially in trq3ibute to the DLP that I joyfully joined with thousands of others in the physical knocking down of the Berlin Wall seventeen years ago.
The DLP has not only been correct in what it has opposed however, but also in what it has supported and in what it has initiated. The DLP was the first party to recognise the importance of Asia to our future and was the first parliamentary party in Australia to call for an end to the White Australia policy. It pioneered votes for eighteen year olds and equal pay for equal work. The DLP supported unions which advanced the interests of their workers without destroying the businesses which employed them, while also recognising union responsibilities to the broader Australian community. The DLP initiated child endowment for large families and government assistance for families to buy a home. It also struggled for, and achieved a measure of justice in education funding and pushed for genuine decentralisation and environmental protection. Little wonder then that even Sir Robert Menzies, the founder of the Liberal Party, after his retirement, voted DLP. The DLP's initiatives of decades ago continue to benefit the lives of most Australians to this day.
Why did almost 60,000 Victorians vote for the DLP at the last election after it had been ignored for so long? I think it was at least in part because the voters of the generation before me, and before most of you, here, know how much was sacrificed in the past, and know how hard Democratic Labor people have worked to implement new ideas for their community and their country.
I summarise what the DLP stands for in this way: We are For Life, For Workers and Battlers, For Families and for Australia".
The DLP lost parliamentary representation in the mid 1970s, in my view largely because of its steadfast support for South Vietnam. There are many significant ideas - for example profit-sharing between business and workers -that could have been much more successful in Australia if the DLP had retained its influence. The DLP would have opposed many of the mistakes that have been made by governments in recent decades. Surely DLP Parliamentarians would also have done something for the three million unborn who have been aborted in Australia over the last thirty years or so.
I'd now like to tell you how I see some present and future challenges.
I believe that we could really address illness, poverty and family breakdowns and dramatically cut crime by genuinely tackling drugs and problem gambling. Addiction, whether to legal or illegal substances or to destructive behaviours is a huge, avoidable threat to individual and community health, prosperity, and security.
Our current drug strategies are failing — we need to change our approach. We need strategies that are both compassionate and effective. Drug usage should remain illegal. Users who are not trafficking, however, should be sentenced, not to jail, but to treatment. Sweden reports that 70 to 80% of its non-voluntary patients are made addiction-free through compulsory treatment.
The current state of rehabilitation in Victoria is bad, even for those who voluntarily seek treatment. There are bureaucratic obstacles and insufficient resources.
We should work with the courts and community groups to develop comprehensive programs of rehabilitation and treatment; for voluntary and non-voluntary patients and we must put up the money to pay for them.
Some users of legal drugs need help too. Those with drinking problems and tobacco addiction deserve more than an assumption of the moral high ground by those who disapprove of their habits. They have paid quite enough in taxes on their habits to fully warrant government help to get out of the deadly traps they are in. As Minister of Health, my grandfather brought to Australia the world's best expertise in the fight against polio. I believe that now, we should bring the world's best medical and psychological techniques to Victoria and subsidise the most effective programmes that can be devised to help the victims of addictions.
What is loosely called "addiction to gambling" is destroying the lives of some people and spurring crime. Gambling brings many millions of dollars to the government but at a catastrophic cost to some families and individuals. I believe that our present poker machine policies and practices exploit the poor, the lonely and the ignorant and should be changed. I think we have an obligation to ensure that gambling is sensibly and effectively regulated in such a way as to minimise problem gambling.
The DLP pioneered government assistance for first home buyers. It is an achievement I would like to see built on. Even after recent reforms, Victorian families wishing to buy a home will still be taxed almost $15,000 to put an average roof over their children's heads. I believe that we should not be taxing families at all when they buy a first home.
I have been a teacher in Victorian schools and have taught and lectured in other countries. I have views about education. Our education system needs to provide a high level of skills, whether of an academic or technical nature as appropriate to the interests and abilities of students. The relatively recent decision to abolish technical schools, in my opinion and experience, has simultaneously lowered the quality of academic education, even for the academically gifted while causing the state to fail in its obligations to provide for non-academic students. The current state of education in Victoria is such that even our best universities now need to offer remedial English to new students.
Non ownership of a school by the government should not mean disownership of responsibility for that school's students by the state. The parents of students in non-government schools pay taxes to the government and their children are entitled to assistance from the government.
State schools should not teach sectarian values, nor should they indoctrinate children in leftist ideology. Schools are a natural place however for young people to learn fundamental, positive social attitudes, particularly the expectation that we all can and should contribute to, and not always take from, the community we share with other people, in other words, that is responsibilities as well as rights.
We represent and owe fairness to all Victorians. Aboriginals and others who are in particular need should be offered particular help on the basis of their need. We should remember however that in the distribution of limited resources, discrimination in favour of one is discrimination against another. Our long term aim should be equality before the law and we should be very careful not to take actions which will result in the creation of different levels of citizenship for future generations.
On most social issues, I believe that people should be largely free to pursue their own happiness in their own way. The contrasting issue is, of course, abortion because I believe, for good reasons, that human life begins at conception. This is not an article of religious faith but is a conclusion based on logic, knowledge, experience and reason.
The unborn person is admittedly human life at its most immature, its most vulnerable, its weakest, its most defenceless. Surely however, the young, the defenceless and the weak deserve more rather than less legal protection.
In addition to justice for the unborn, babies who are born alive after undergoing attempted abortion procedures are as entitled to respect and medical attention as anybody else. This is not often talked about but there are around fifty cases a year in the UK, suggesting an annual rate of perhaps four or five in Victoria. Investigations have been held in other states into babies being neglected after surviving attempted abortions. One baby in Sydney had been discovered crying in a waste bin. Victorian law should make it explicit that medical personnel are obliged to help such babies.
To me, this is a central issue - the limits of government and individual power. To have no reasoned and reasonable position on the limitations of such power is to conspire silently in creating a world where the abuse of power has no limits.
I congratulate this government on making this chamber a forum for a true multitude of counsellors. I hope to be a counsellor on behalf the unrepresented – including children in non-government schools and for the unborn who have no voice at all.
I also hope to speak for those who did vote but are underrepresented, including the aged and the disabled, and the supporters of minor parties.
They voted - not to bring down the government, but to counsel it.
They voted - not for the carefully crafted image of a major party, but for their own firmly held beliefs.
They voted - not for power, but to be heard.
I share at least some common ground with every Member here. I look forward to working with other Members who have expressed concerns which I share on challenges including homelessness, crime, environmental protection, public transport and our water crisis.
The government has a strong mandate so I expect to vote with the government quite often. Wisely however, Victorians also want their government to be accountable and so I will vote for measures which the government may not like, to put it under scrutiny which is fair, reasonable and close.
I may fail but will aspire to emulate the courage and dedication of the DLP's founders in working for the enduring ideals and values of the Democratic Labor Party - For Australia, For Workers and Battlers, For Families, For Life.
Monday, 18 February 2008
Media 2007-03-14 Goldfields Superpipe
PRESS RELEASE
14 March 2007. Wednesday.
Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria, has urged the State government to seriously negotiate with farmers and respect the properties they are affecting when constructing water infrastructure projects. Mr Kavanagh has also argued in Parliament that Victorian governments have been negligent over a long period in failing to adequately plan for droughts and future water needs.
Peter Kavanagh's comments in Hansard follows.
For further comment please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I will briefly explain why I intend to support the amendment of the bill. Last week I met with quite a lot of farmers in the Ballarat area through whose properties the super-pipe will pass. Those farmers are angry; they feel that the government is not listening to them. They are
Page 535
worried about a lot of things associated with the super-pipe, including the possibility of weeds being spread while the super-pipe is being laid. They have been given conflicting information about the depth of the pipe, but they demand that the top of the pipe be at least 1 metre from ground level to allow for the use of large agricultural machinery in the future. They want to know what will happen to the soil that is displaced by the super-pipe. They claim that in the past when pipes have been laid quite often the topsoil has been put straight on top of the pipe and then buried under clay and rocks, ruining part of their land. They want assurances about the future -- for example, they want a guarantee that, if the pipe breaks, it will be repaired without damage to their properties.
According to many experts there are superior alternatives to the super-pipe.
Two former ministers -- Glyndwr Jenkins, who was Minister of Water Supply under Lindsay Thompson, and Rod Mackenzie, who was Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands under John Cain, Jr -- have been promoting a Barwon Water recommendation of 2003 for a weir on the Gellibrand River capturing some of its water, together with a pipe to the West Barwon Dam. At present only 7 per cent of Gellibrand River water is used, while 93 per cent flows into the sea. This option, which would be of low environmental impact, would be economical and would take the pressure off the water supply that is presently shared between Ballarat and Geelong.
Last year this house debated a motion to condemn the government for its handling of water. I voted against that motion because I did not want the first Democratic Labor Party vote in this house in almost 50 years to be condemning anybody. I also do not know if the Kennett government had a much better record on water than the present government does.
However, it seems to me that over a period of decades successive Victorian governments have shown a lack of leadership and have even shown neglect on the water issue. I urge the government to seriously address the concerns of landowners who will be affected by the super-pipe and to cast aside any ideological prejudices it may have against environmentally responsible dams in seeking long-term solutions to the water challenges facing Victoria.
14 March 2007. Wednesday.
Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC for Western Victoria, has urged the State government to seriously negotiate with farmers and respect the properties they are affecting when constructing water infrastructure projects. Mr Kavanagh has also argued in Parliament that Victorian governments have been negligent over a long period in failing to adequately plan for droughts and future water needs.
Peter Kavanagh's comments in Hansard follows.
For further comment please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) -- I will briefly explain why I intend to support the amendment of the bill. Last week I met with quite a lot of farmers in the Ballarat area through whose properties the super-pipe will pass. Those farmers are angry; they feel that the government is not listening to them. They are
Page 535
worried about a lot of things associated with the super-pipe, including the possibility of weeds being spread while the super-pipe is being laid. They have been given conflicting information about the depth of the pipe, but they demand that the top of the pipe be at least 1 metre from ground level to allow for the use of large agricultural machinery in the future. They want to know what will happen to the soil that is displaced by the super-pipe. They claim that in the past when pipes have been laid quite often the topsoil has been put straight on top of the pipe and then buried under clay and rocks, ruining part of their land. They want assurances about the future -- for example, they want a guarantee that, if the pipe breaks, it will be repaired without damage to their properties.
According to many experts there are superior alternatives to the super-pipe.
Two former ministers -- Glyndwr Jenkins, who was Minister of Water Supply under Lindsay Thompson, and Rod Mackenzie, who was Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands under John Cain, Jr -- have been promoting a Barwon Water recommendation of 2003 for a weir on the Gellibrand River capturing some of its water, together with a pipe to the West Barwon Dam. At present only 7 per cent of Gellibrand River water is used, while 93 per cent flows into the sea. This option, which would be of low environmental impact, would be economical and would take the pressure off the water supply that is presently shared between Ballarat and Geelong.
Last year this house debated a motion to condemn the government for its handling of water. I voted against that motion because I did not want the first Democratic Labor Party vote in this house in almost 50 years to be condemning anybody. I also do not know if the Kennett government had a much better record on water than the present government does.
However, it seems to me that over a period of decades successive Victorian governments have shown a lack of leadership and have even shown neglect on the water issue. I urge the government to seriously address the concerns of landowners who will be affected by the super-pipe and to cast aside any ideological prejudices it may have against environmentally responsible dams in seeking long-term solutions to the water challenges facing Victoria.
Media 2007-03-07 Goldfields Superpipe
PRESS RELEASE
7 March 2007. Wednesday, 11:00am.
Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC today begins a three day tour of Western Victoria . Mr Kavanagh will visit a farm outside Ballarat and then be briefed on the local water situation at Central Highlands Water.
At 2.30 pm Mr Kavanagh will attend the Newlyn Sporting Complex, on the Midlands Highway at Newlyn to meet local people who say that they have a message they want given to the Victorian government. Many framers in the area are expressing frustration that the government is not listening to them.
A Bill that will facilitate the construction of the "superpipe" will be introduced into the Legislative Council very soon. Mr Kavanagh has previously promised to listen to Western Victorians before making decisions on water.
For further comment please call 03 5222 1503.
7 March 2007. Wednesday, 11:00am.
Peter Kavanagh DLP MLC today begins a three day tour of Western Victoria . Mr Kavanagh will visit a farm outside Ballarat and then be briefed on the local water situation at Central Highlands Water.
At 2.30 pm Mr Kavanagh will attend the Newlyn Sporting Complex, on the Midlands Highway at Newlyn to meet local people who say that they have a message they want given to the Victorian government. Many framers in the area are expressing frustration that the government is not listening to them.
A Bill that will facilitate the construction of the "superpipe" will be introduced into the Legislative Council very soon. Mr Kavanagh has previously promised to listen to Western Victorians before making decisions on water.
For further comment please call 03 5222 1503.
Media 2007-03-06 Goldfields Superpipe
PRESS RELEASE
6 March 2007. Tuesday, 11:30pm.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC, will begin a tour of Western Victoria tomorrow, Wednesday 8 March. Mr Kavanagh will visit a farm outside Ballarat and then be briefed on the local water situation at Central Highlands Water.
At 2.30 pm Mr Kavanagh will attend the Newlyn Sporting Complex, on the Midlands Highway at Newlyn to meet local people who say that they have a message they want given to the Victorian government. Many framers in the area are expressing frustration that the government is not listening to them.
A Bill that will facilitate the construction of the "superpipe" will be introduced into the Legislataive Council very soon. Mr Kavanagh has previously promised to listen to Western Victorians before making decisions on water.
For further comment please call 03 5222 1503.
6 March 2007. Tuesday, 11:30pm.
Peter Kavanagh, DLP MLC, will begin a tour of Western Victoria tomorrow, Wednesday 8 March. Mr Kavanagh will visit a farm outside Ballarat and then be briefed on the local water situation at Central Highlands Water.
At 2.30 pm Mr Kavanagh will attend the Newlyn Sporting Complex, on the Midlands Highway at Newlyn to meet local people who say that they have a message they want given to the Victorian government. Many framers in the area are expressing frustration that the government is not listening to them.
A Bill that will facilitate the construction of the "superpipe" will be introduced into the Legislataive Council very soon. Mr Kavanagh has previously promised to listen to Western Victorians before making decisions on water.
For further comment please call 03 5222 1503.
Media 2007-02-13 Inaugural Speech
PRESS RELEASE
13 February 2007. Tuesday, 3.30 pm.
Member for Western Victoria Peter Kavanagh today became the first Democratic Labor Party member in 51 years to deliver an inaugural speech in the Victorian parliament.
Mr Kavanagh delivered his inaugural speech today at 3.30 pm.
A link of Mr Kavanagh's speech follows, and a photo of Mr Kavanagh can be downloaded from:
http://www.dlpwestvic.org/pages/photos.html
Further inquiries, Michael Casanova, 03 5222 1503.
http://peterkavanagh.blogspot.com/2008/02/inaugural-speech-peter-kavanagh-mlc.html
13 February 2007. Tuesday, 3.30 pm.
Member for Western Victoria Peter Kavanagh today became the first Democratic Labor Party member in 51 years to deliver an inaugural speech in the Victorian parliament.
Mr Kavanagh delivered his inaugural speech today at 3.30 pm.
A link of Mr Kavanagh's speech follows, and a photo of Mr Kavanagh can be downloaded from:
http://www.dlpwestvic.org/pages/photos.html
Further inquiries, Michael Casanova, 03 5222 1503.
http://peterkavanagh.blogspot.com/2008/02/inaugural-speech-peter-kavanagh-mlc.html
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
Hansard 2007-05-02 Cloning Speech
Ethically and Technologically
Superior Alternatives to
Embryonic Stem Cells
Already Available
“Mr Scheffer, in his contribution, said that he does not accept that the cloned embryo is a potential human being. I agree. There is nothing potential about it; it is a human being ... The embryo is a person, and it looks exactly like a person should look at that stage of development.”
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) —
I intend to speak at some length this evening because I believe this is an issue that warrants considerable discussion and comment. I express the opinion first that I am disappointed that many members are not here because many actually told me they would listen carefully to the debate before they voted. Many of those members are not in the chamber. It may be helpful if they were here, although they may still be able to hear something of the debate — I understand that.
We are to vote according to our consciences whether or not to allow embryos to be cloned, experimented upon and then destroyed. The question is whether or not to cross what the federal opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, called in the commonwealth Parliament an ‘ethical threshold’. I think perhaps ‘ethical precipice’ would be a better term. I agree with Mr Rudd that we should not cross that ethical barrier. We should not, in his terms, create life for the explicit purpose of experimentation and destruction. It is clearly wrong to destroy the weak in order to benefit others. Human life should never be an industrial material. As has been noted before in this house, human beings are ends in themselves, not means to ends.
In addition to these clear ethical principles, there are other associated principles and considerations and very good pragmatic reasons for opposing embryonic stem cell research. The inherently unethical nature of this proposal, the damage to women’s health that it would necessarily involve and the diversion away from more ethical and more promising fields of research all show that the proper choice is clearly to oppose this bill.
This bill is extraordinary for several reasons. First, the bill covers separate, largely unrelated matters. Human cloning for research purposes is not infertility treatment, and this controversial part of the bill should be in a separate bill by itself. The language of this bill is less than candid. SCNT, or even somatic cell nuclear transfer, may sound more acceptable, but it is less than forthright. The subject matter should be referred to as what it is — cloning. We have had some speakers say they would never accept reproductive cloning. Reproductive cloning is tautologous — all cloning is reproductive. All cloning produces another person or animal. That is the nature of the process — the production or reproduction of another person or animal.
This bill says that it is about therapeutic cloning. In fact it is just the opposite. This bill is not about treatments in itself. The hope is that maybe some years in the future it may lead to treatments. By its nature this bill is about reproductive cloning, with the hope perhaps some time in the future of developing therapies from that reproductive cloning. If members have been correct in saying that they are absolutely opposed to reproductive cloning, they will vote against this bill. I noticed that one member said she felt she was quite sure that the human material involved in the cloning under this bill will be treated respectfully. I really do not understand how you respectfully destroy a cloned person.
In my view there are very strong limits on the proper role of governments in enforcing morality, but the first role of any government or legal system is to prevent harm being done to other people. This necessarily demands, first, that people are not killed and, second, that they are prevented from killing others. Life is so important because it is a prerequisite to every other good. When a person is killed, so is every potential, every chance, every opportunity. When we kill, we take everything away. Life is an individual’s paramount right, and its protection is every state’s primary duty.
The embryo is a human being. Mr Scheffer, in his contribution, said that he does not accept that the cloned embryo is a potential human being. I agree. There is nothing potential about it; it is a human being.
The embryo does not look like the other people that we are accustomed to seeing, so some people conclude that the embryo is not a person. The embryo is a person, and it looks exactly like a person should look at that stage of development.
It has sometimes been claimed, even explicitly in the other house, that the embryos to be created and destroyed under this bill are not human because they are cells, or because they are extremely small, or because they are not viable. In a material sense, what are any of us here but cells? Everyone in the world is just a collection of cells in a material sense. As for the human beings to be destroyed by this bill being tiny, are we to believe that large people are more entitled to life than small people? Are the tall to be protected more than the short? Are the obese more worthy of life than the skinny? Of course not; size has nothing to do with it.
It is sometimes claimed that viability is analogous to personhood; that is that the human embryo should not be considered human if it can be shown that it cannot survive long, and I think Mr Drum addressed that point very well. The principle underlying this assertion is not correct in any case. Surely even a dying person is a person even if that person cannot live very long. In any case, the assumption that a cloned embryo is not viable is incorrect. The cloning technology that we would authorise by this bill is precisely the same technology that created Dolly the sheep, and, like Dolly the sheep, these human embryos could go on and develop into adulthood. I do not say personhood, because they are already people.
Two or three weeks ago I was at one of the seminars held by experts who came in to talk to members of Parliament. In the course of one of the seminars a young member said to the panel in a very agitated way, ‘Look, would you please settle something once and for all. These human embryos cannot go on and live into adulthood, can they? People come to my office and they tell me they can, but I keep telling them, “No, you are wrong”, and they yell back at me, “No, you’re wrong; they can grow into adulthood”. Would you please settle that for me once and for all’. The expert was a little bit embarrassed. She obviously did not want to immediately deflate the person who asked the question. After a short hesitation she said, ‘Well, theoretically they are right, but in a practical sense you are right because the bill mandates the destruction of the embryo after 14 days’. I was shocked by that answer; I was flabbergasted. What is the logic of that answer? Any person or group of people — any category of person — which the law mandates to be killed, automatically, by that law cease to be human. Why? Because they are no longer viable. Why? Because we passed a law saying they have to be killed.
The world has seen quite a bit of that kind of logic before, and I think it has always had disastrous consequences. The lives to be experimented on, to be engineered and destroyed, under the bill will indeed be composed of tiny, artificially conceived cells which are vulnerable and in the earlier stages of development. They will also be genetically complete, living, growing and human.
There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that neatly encapsulates a very interesting characteristic of human beings. That characteristic is that we tend to be more moved, more motivated, more persuaded by what we see than by what we know. The human embryo is a human even if we cannot see it — even if we cannot see him or her. I say ‘him or her’ advisedly, because although the sex of the embryo may not be apparent it is determined at conception. The human embryos to be destroyed under the bill will be male or female. In respect to considering the humanity of the unborn embryo. I ask that all members think with their mind and not with their eyes.
The bill would authorise the creation and destruction of some human beings for the benefit — it is argued — of another category of human beings — another class of people clearly assumed to be of more value than those to be destroyed. In contributing to the development of categories or classes of human life — and the bill does do that — we might ask: into which category will we put the sick, the deceased and the injured; those whom the bill purports to benefit? Those who are deficient in any sense will surely not be assumed to be in the top class of humans. In other words, in creating a hierarchy of human worth the bill will demean and degrade precisely those whom it purports to help. A related point was made by the member for Box Hill in the other place. He said ‘once we become used to treating some life as not worthy of living or as an object to be used for the ends of others, we undermine the grounds for protecting any human life’.
History is full of examples of denying recognition as human beings to others. If history has taught us anything, is it not that we must avoid denying human recognition to other people? Does not every historical example fill us with revulsion, and is this not precisely what the bill does? Does the bill not propose to do this on the basis of age and/or level of development? Much has been made in the debate in Australia about the other countries that allow cloning and destruction of embryos. We have heard less about the fact that some countries have banned the practice. They include the Italians, the Austrians and the Germans, who are admirably learning from their historical experiences. I think we too should learn from their history. We should also note that in 2005 the General Assembly of the United Nations urged all countries to ban cloning, and I quote ‘Inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life’.
The cloning envisaged would require huge numbers of human eggs. It took 430 sheep ova to clone Dolly the sheep. It was revealed following the scandal in South Korea last year that the scientist who had attempted human cloning had used well over 2000 ova from 122 women without success. Egg harvesting normally results in around 12 to 20 eggs, although sometimes more. This means that it will take the eggs of many dozens or hundreds of women to clone a single embryo. Large numbers of ova are not easily obtained.
The extraction of ova from a woman is not a simple procedure. It involves massive courses of hormones and invasive procedures with significant risks. The reproductive organs of donors may swell massively during this process and discomfort is the least of it. It was alleged by Women’s Forum Australia in its submission to this Parliament’s Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee that six women are known to have died in the United Kingdom alone from ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, or OHSS. Much more common than deaths is damage to organs and likely future fertility problems resulting from these procedures. Mr Drum also noted future genetic defects, about which I have not been aware.
Like it or not, regulate against it or not, passage of this bill would see a market develop for ova as it already has in the United Kingdom, where women are paid £250 for their expenses.
The first rule of medicine is ‘Do no harm’. How is this procedure compatible with that first maxim of medicine which has been around for well over 2000 years from the time of Hippocrates? It is precisely because of the combination of the requirement for huge numbers of ova and the difficulty of obtaining them that some experts, including Professor Alan Trounson himself, say that embryonic stem cells are unlikely to result in the medical advances that some of its proponents claim. In Reproduction, Fertility and Development, Professor Trounson said:
… it is unlikely that large numbers of mature human oocytes would be available for the production of ES — embryonic stem — cells, particularly if hundreds are required to produce each ES cell line. The technical capability for nuclear transfer would also need to be widely available and this is unlikely.
There are many deficiencies, technically as well as ethically, with embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells have an inherent tendency towards explosive growth. Attempts to use embryonic stem cells have so far invariably led to the development of extremely aggressive tumours. This has been the case in animal trials and, indeed, human trials — for example, last year embryonic stem cells caused cancer in every single one of the rats into which they were injected. It seems very doubtful that such an inherent tendency will ever be overcome.
Furthermore, although it seems likely upon initial consideration that clones might eventually provide rejection-free transplants, there are very good scientific reasons for thinking that this is actually quite unlikely. It seems that, to put it simply, the very act of cloning damages the clone’s cells rendering them unsuitable for transplantation. Quoting Professor Trounson again from the same document:
… epigenetic remnants of the somatic cell used as the nuclear donor can cause major functional problems in development … which must remain a concern for ES cells derived by nuclear transfer.
It also states:
… it would appear unlikely that these strategies will be used extensively for producing ES cells compatible for transplantation.
Embryonic stem cells collect mutations, and the stem cells will very probably be degraded by the process of cloning itself. This is likely to contribute to their tendency to produce tumours when transplanted and cause them to be much less effective in transplants than we might hope for. This might partially explain why Dolly was plagued by health problems and only lived to be half the life span of a normal sheep. In addition, of course, the clone is genetically the age of the donor at the time of donation. From conception the clone is genetically the age of the donor.
In the United States of America last month Senator Brownback of Kansas put the score for embryonic stem cell research as 613 to zero. That is $613 million of US federal government money, plus a lot more from other levels of government plus non-government sources, including $3 billion presumably that Mr Drum referred to earlier. The results? Zero! Nothing useful has so far come from this investment. How much more might have come from investment in other, more effective stem cell technologies?
Embarking on the embryonic cloning path is likely to actually detract from medical advances by leading away from other avenues of research that are not only much more ethical but also more promising. Research on different types of non-embryonic stem cells have already shown great results and amazing promise.
First, adult stem cells. Adult stem cells grow in an ordered, regular way. Research with adult stem cells, which does not involve the destruction of human life, has so far led to more than 70 cures or treatments for conditions including Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Adult stem cell technologies were recently shown to deliver results for people with spinal cord injuries, such as those treated by Dr Carlos Lima in Portugal, who reported last year on the transplant of nasal stem cells into seven patients with long-term spinal cord injury. Breakthroughs based on adult stem cells are announced almost weekly, including a Melbourne-based one in the treatment of heart attacks reported on 3 April this year.
Professor Alan Mackay-Sim of Brisbane, neuroscientist and researcher and Queenslander of the Year for 2003, has said that adult stem cells can do everything that is hoped embryonic stem cells might be able to do. They can be obtained from a range of disease sufferers and can be tweaked into the relevant cell type for genetic study and cell testing. Professor Mackay-Sim considers adult stem cells to be superior to embryonic stem cells, because they do not carry the genetic damage caused by the cloning process, they do not incorporate mitochondrial DNA, are more easily and cheaply obtained and readily multiplied and more stable genetically.
The potential of adult stem cells alone has rendered the case for cloning, as Professor Mackay-Sim puts it, irrelevant and impractical. Irrelevant and impractical — that is what Professor Mackay-Sim, Queenslander of the Year and scientist, says about embryonic stem cells. That potential has been demonstrated by the development of treatments or cures for 26 types of cancers including the brain tumours medulloblastoma and glioma, retinoblastoma, ovarian cancer, the skin cancer merkel cell carcinoma, testicular cancer, tumours abdominal organs lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are 73 diseases and illnesses listed in this document which are now curable or treatable, to some extent at least, because of research done on adult stem cells. Each listing has a peer review journal reference. In fact, this is slightly out of date because it does not include the breakthrough announced in Melbourne last month, which I referred to earlier.
What do all of these treatments mean in practice? This is the practical reality. Edward Bailey, a 65-year-old Englishman, could not believe it. For 10 years all he had seen were shades of black and grey. After an operation using adult stem cells a nurse came by and he saw a flash of blue from her uniform. He went home and when he took the eye patch off he had his vision back. He observed that it is only when you lose something like sight that you realise how precious it is.
Surely these proven results by themselves would be enough for us to conclude that stem cell research on embryos is not the right path, but there is a lot more.
Umbilical cord blood cells are being used in a host of treatments, and not only by those who have had their umbilical cords stored for them, an increasingly popular practice in the United States. One of the many people who have benefited from umbilical cord blood stem cells is American Nathan Salley, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at the age of 11 in 1997. In 1999 he was one of seven children to receive a cord blood transplant. In testimony before a congressional committee in 2001 Salley proudly declared that he was living proof that there are promising and useful alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and that embryos do not need to be destroyed to achieve medical breakthroughs.
In addition reports from the Presidential Commission on Bioethics say there are five methods undergoing development by which embryonic stem cell research may be possible without destroying embryos.
Amniotic stem cells are an even more exciting alternative. In January of this year, following the passage of the commonwealth legislation, it was announced in the United States that research had shown the potential of amniotic cells for medical research and treatment. Amniotic cells are cells taken from the fluid surrounding the foetus in the womb or from the placenta, which is normally thrown away following birth. Embryos do not need to be destroyed to obtain these amniotic cells. People do not need to be harmed and eggs do not need to be harvested.
The research was widely reported including in Newsweek on 7 January. The Newsweek article is titled ‘A new era begins’. Following the passage of the act on which this bill is based, a new era has begun. The article says that amniotic stem cells rival embryonic stem cells in their ability to multiply and transform into many different cell types. Furthermore they can be obtained harmlessly as a by-product of amniocentesis or from placentas, which as I said are normally thrown away following birth.
Amniotic stem cells are pluripotent — that is, able to transform into fully grown cells representing each of the three major kinds of tissue found in the body. The scientists were able to create in the laboratory nerve cells, liver cells, endothelial cells — which line blood vessels — and cells involved in the creation of bone, muscle and fat. Some scientists even coaxed amniotic cells into becoming structures found in the kidneys. Some of the amniotic cells functioned as they would be expected to in the human body. The liver cells secreted urea, an activity otherwise seen exclusively in their natural counterparts. Relevant to Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders, the laboratory’s nerve cells secreted glutamate, a neurotransmitter which is crucial to memory and which helps to form dopamine. Tests were also done on mice with a neurodegenerative disease. These showed that the amniotic cells sought out and repopulated damaged areas of the brain.
Amniotic stem cells multiply quickly and are remarkably long lived. The laboratory’s cells divided more than 250 times. They are very tolerant to low oxygen, which makes it easier to manipulate them in the laboratory. It also means that once they are transplanted into a body they can live for quite a long time until the body sends out blood vessels to feed them. I sent a copy of this report to all members. If they read it they will see that amniotic fluid stem cells do not cause tumours, and they apparently provoke very little immune response when implanted, although why that is so is not understood.
Late in 2006 a Swiss team reported that it had temporarily been able to grow human heart valves from cells found in amniotic fluid. The Newsweek article concludes by stating:
It’s a future that’s suddenly looking brighter.
Not only is it a new era, but it is a very bright new era full of promise, promise from amniotic not embryonic stem cells.
Since the passage of the commonwealth legislation on which the current bill is based a new alternative to embryonic stem cells has been reported. This alternative does not require the destruction of human embryos. It does not jeopardise the health of women. It does not cause cancer. It does not provoke a strong rejection response. It has been proven to be feasible and to do things that only in our wildest dreams might we have hoped it could do. In short, amniotic stem cells show every promise of being vastly superior ethically and technologically to embryonic stem cells.
In view of the evidence it is reasonable to conclude that each of these alternative, ethical stem cell methods by itself — adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells — exceeds the technological potential of embryonic stem cells. If they do not individually, then the evidence is overwhelming that collectively they certainly exceed the potential of embryonic stem cells.
Human cloning, on which this bill is based, has not yet been achieved. There is some doubt that it can be done, although I suspect that it is possible. According to my understanding it is normal practice, however, before research theories are carried out on humans, to demonstrate proof of concept — that is, that what is proposed can actually be done by showing that it can be done on animals, particularly apes. There has been no proof of concept with embryonic stem cells; there have been no valuable treatments or cures to have come from embryonic stem cells in animals yet. This is just one example of this particular bill not conforming to established safeguards and procedures.
I would like to add on the subject of apes that a few weeks ago I was watching television at home, flicking through the channels, when I came across a documentary on the apes of the world. The makers of the program began by asking, ‘In what way are we human beings really different from apes?’. The film crew went all around the world, and it filmed gorillas in Africa. The makers asked the question, ‘Can apes make tools?’ They showed a film of the gorillas twisting pieces of straw and grass in a certain way to make a tool for scraping out ants from ant holes and then eating the ants. They then said, ‘Obviously we are not unique in being able to produce tools, what about in terms of foresight?’
They then filmed in the Amazon a much smaller ape. They showed a monkey going to a tree which had very delicious fruit, but the fruit could not be eaten by the monkey unless it first made a tiny hole in the fruit, sucked the juice out and left the fruit for four days, after which, the monkey had learned, it was dry enough to be able to be opened and eaten. So we human beings are not unique in our ability to make tools. We are not unique in our capacity for foresight. The makers of the program asked, ‘How are we unique?’ and answered that we human beings and only we human beings have ethics. According to the makers of the program that is the one, single, solitary difference between us and other primates.
We are indeed on a slippery slope. We are not at the peak of it; we are halfway down and gathering momentum. If members do not believe that, I ask them to please just consider that in the year 2002 the commonwealth Parliament unanimously — every single member — voted to ban cloning, yet here we are only five years later and it seems we are about to authorise the practice of cloning in Victoria. The public has been led to believe that the members of this Parliament will be voting according to their consciences. Members of large parties will know if that is true or not. If that is not true, members may decide that their honour demands that they show integrity and independence in their vote. A dictionary will define honour as the ability to tell right from wrong. To me honour has always meant not exploiting others, and above all never using what is good about others against them.
All of us here, every single one of us, throughout our lives have seen people we love suffer from ailments and have desperately wished they could be cured. Every one of us here loves people who we hope might benefit from medical breakthroughs. I think a lot of us here hope that we ourselves might benefit in the future from yet to be discovered medical technologies. I do. We also probably hope for the uplifting of humanity, for relief from pain for everyone throughout the world and for an end to disease and suffering for human beings generally.
There are better ways, however, than those proposed by this bill — vastly better ethnically and much better technologically. The bill before us is technically far from good parliamentary practice. More importantly, it seeks to allow the destruction of human embryos on the false premise that this is good science. It is not good science. Happily, with respect to stem cell research good science coincides with good ethics. The bill proposes medical technology which is not only ethically repugnant but scientifically obsolete, redundant and unnecessary. In this very fast-changing world of bioethical technology, embryonic stem cell research should be considered to be not from the age of black-and-white television but from the age of the overland telegraph. It is already redundant.
To vote for this bill would be to support the destruction of cloned embryos; and, I suppose, their creation or their engineering. The evidence shows that it will also be a vote to hamper medical advances, to slow the development of therapeutic technologies, and to delay the discovery of new cures and treatments. It has been suggested that we do not profit anything at all if we sell our souls, even if we gain the whole world in exchange. How much less do we profit when we accept what we know to be profoundly wrong and get nothing in exchange?
The passage of this bill will not advance the cause of medical research; it will block it by directing resources to a field of study which is not only wrong in principle but technologically unpromising. The Faustian bargain proposed by this bill would destroy nascent human life, distract from superior avenues of research, degrade those it seeks to benefit and damage women even to the point of death — and surely the passage of this bill would also diminish our selves.
President, if the bill is passed, I would like to move that it be sent to the Legislation Committee.
See http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/asc-refs.pdf
for 180 peer reviewed references
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“Mr Scheffer, in his contribution, said that he does not accept that the cloned embryo is a potential human being. I agree. There is nothing potential about it; it is a human being ... The embryo is a person, and it looks exactly like a person should look at that stage of development.”
Mr KAVANAGH (Western Victoria) —
I intend to speak at some length this evening because I believe this is an issue that warrants considerable discussion and comment. I express the opinion first that I am disappointed that many members are not here because many actually told me they would listen carefully to the debate before they voted. Many of those members are not in the chamber. It may be helpful if they were here, although they may still be able to hear something of the debate — I understand that.
We are to vote according to our consciences whether or not to allow embryos to be cloned, experimented upon and then destroyed. The question is whether or not to cross what the federal opposition leader, Kevin Rudd, called in the commonwealth Parliament an ‘ethical threshold’. I think perhaps ‘ethical precipice’ would be a better term. I agree with Mr Rudd that we should not cross that ethical barrier. We should not, in his terms, create life for the explicit purpose of experimentation and destruction. It is clearly wrong to destroy the weak in order to benefit others. Human life should never be an industrial material. As has been noted before in this house, human beings are ends in themselves, not means to ends.
In addition to these clear ethical principles, there are other associated principles and considerations and very good pragmatic reasons for opposing embryonic stem cell research. The inherently unethical nature of this proposal, the damage to women’s health that it would necessarily involve and the diversion away from more ethical and more promising fields of research all show that the proper choice is clearly to oppose this bill.
This bill is extraordinary for several reasons. First, the bill covers separate, largely unrelated matters. Human cloning for research purposes is not infertility treatment, and this controversial part of the bill should be in a separate bill by itself. The language of this bill is less than candid. SCNT, or even somatic cell nuclear transfer, may sound more acceptable, but it is less than forthright. The subject matter should be referred to as what it is — cloning. We have had some speakers say they would never accept reproductive cloning. Reproductive cloning is tautologous — all cloning is reproductive. All cloning produces another person or animal. That is the nature of the process — the production or reproduction of another person or animal.
This bill says that it is about therapeutic cloning. In fact it is just the opposite. This bill is not about treatments in itself. The hope is that maybe some years in the future it may lead to treatments. By its nature this bill is about reproductive cloning, with the hope perhaps some time in the future of developing therapies from that reproductive cloning. If members have been correct in saying that they are absolutely opposed to reproductive cloning, they will vote against this bill. I noticed that one member said she felt she was quite sure that the human material involved in the cloning under this bill will be treated respectfully. I really do not understand how you respectfully destroy a cloned person.
In my view there are very strong limits on the proper role of governments in enforcing morality, but the first role of any government or legal system is to prevent harm being done to other people. This necessarily demands, first, that people are not killed and, second, that they are prevented from killing others. Life is so important because it is a prerequisite to every other good. When a person is killed, so is every potential, every chance, every opportunity. When we kill, we take everything away. Life is an individual’s paramount right, and its protection is every state’s primary duty.
The embryo is a human being. Mr Scheffer, in his contribution, said that he does not accept that the cloned embryo is a potential human being. I agree. There is nothing potential about it; it is a human being.
The embryo does not look like the other people that we are accustomed to seeing, so some people conclude that the embryo is not a person. The embryo is a person, and it looks exactly like a person should look at that stage of development.
It has sometimes been claimed, even explicitly in the other house, that the embryos to be created and destroyed under this bill are not human because they are cells, or because they are extremely small, or because they are not viable. In a material sense, what are any of us here but cells? Everyone in the world is just a collection of cells in a material sense. As for the human beings to be destroyed by this bill being tiny, are we to believe that large people are more entitled to life than small people? Are the tall to be protected more than the short? Are the obese more worthy of life than the skinny? Of course not; size has nothing to do with it.
It is sometimes claimed that viability is analogous to personhood; that is that the human embryo should not be considered human if it can be shown that it cannot survive long, and I think Mr Drum addressed that point very well. The principle underlying this assertion is not correct in any case. Surely even a dying person is a person even if that person cannot live very long. In any case, the assumption that a cloned embryo is not viable is incorrect. The cloning technology that we would authorise by this bill is precisely the same technology that created Dolly the sheep, and, like Dolly the sheep, these human embryos could go on and develop into adulthood. I do not say personhood, because they are already people.
Two or three weeks ago I was at one of the seminars held by experts who came in to talk to members of Parliament. In the course of one of the seminars a young member said to the panel in a very agitated way, ‘Look, would you please settle something once and for all. These human embryos cannot go on and live into adulthood, can they? People come to my office and they tell me they can, but I keep telling them, “No, you are wrong”, and they yell back at me, “No, you’re wrong; they can grow into adulthood”. Would you please settle that for me once and for all’. The expert was a little bit embarrassed. She obviously did not want to immediately deflate the person who asked the question. After a short hesitation she said, ‘Well, theoretically they are right, but in a practical sense you are right because the bill mandates the destruction of the embryo after 14 days’. I was shocked by that answer; I was flabbergasted. What is the logic of that answer? Any person or group of people — any category of person — which the law mandates to be killed, automatically, by that law cease to be human. Why? Because they are no longer viable. Why? Because we passed a law saying they have to be killed.
The world has seen quite a bit of that kind of logic before, and I think it has always had disastrous consequences. The lives to be experimented on, to be engineered and destroyed, under the bill will indeed be composed of tiny, artificially conceived cells which are vulnerable and in the earlier stages of development. They will also be genetically complete, living, growing and human.
There is a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that neatly encapsulates a very interesting characteristic of human beings. That characteristic is that we tend to be more moved, more motivated, more persuaded by what we see than by what we know. The human embryo is a human even if we cannot see it — even if we cannot see him or her. I say ‘him or her’ advisedly, because although the sex of the embryo may not be apparent it is determined at conception. The human embryos to be destroyed under the bill will be male or female. In respect to considering the humanity of the unborn embryo. I ask that all members think with their mind and not with their eyes.
The bill would authorise the creation and destruction of some human beings for the benefit — it is argued — of another category of human beings — another class of people clearly assumed to be of more value than those to be destroyed. In contributing to the development of categories or classes of human life — and the bill does do that — we might ask: into which category will we put the sick, the deceased and the injured; those whom the bill purports to benefit? Those who are deficient in any sense will surely not be assumed to be in the top class of humans. In other words, in creating a hierarchy of human worth the bill will demean and degrade precisely those whom it purports to help. A related point was made by the member for Box Hill in the other place. He said ‘once we become used to treating some life as not worthy of living or as an object to be used for the ends of others, we undermine the grounds for protecting any human life’.
History is full of examples of denying recognition as human beings to others. If history has taught us anything, is it not that we must avoid denying human recognition to other people? Does not every historical example fill us with revulsion, and is this not precisely what the bill does? Does the bill not propose to do this on the basis of age and/or level of development? Much has been made in the debate in Australia about the other countries that allow cloning and destruction of embryos. We have heard less about the fact that some countries have banned the practice. They include the Italians, the Austrians and the Germans, who are admirably learning from their historical experiences. I think we too should learn from their history. We should also note that in 2005 the General Assembly of the United Nations urged all countries to ban cloning, and I quote ‘Inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life’.
The cloning envisaged would require huge numbers of human eggs. It took 430 sheep ova to clone Dolly the sheep. It was revealed following the scandal in South Korea last year that the scientist who had attempted human cloning had used well over 2000 ova from 122 women without success. Egg harvesting normally results in around 12 to 20 eggs, although sometimes more. This means that it will take the eggs of many dozens or hundreds of women to clone a single embryo. Large numbers of ova are not easily obtained.
The extraction of ova from a woman is not a simple procedure. It involves massive courses of hormones and invasive procedures with significant risks. The reproductive organs of donors may swell massively during this process and discomfort is the least of it. It was alleged by Women’s Forum Australia in its submission to this Parliament’s Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee that six women are known to have died in the United Kingdom alone from ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, or OHSS. Much more common than deaths is damage to organs and likely future fertility problems resulting from these procedures. Mr Drum also noted future genetic defects, about which I have not been aware.
Like it or not, regulate against it or not, passage of this bill would see a market develop for ova as it already has in the United Kingdom, where women are paid £250 for their expenses.
The first rule of medicine is ‘Do no harm’. How is this procedure compatible with that first maxim of medicine which has been around for well over 2000 years from the time of Hippocrates? It is precisely because of the combination of the requirement for huge numbers of ova and the difficulty of obtaining them that some experts, including Professor Alan Trounson himself, say that embryonic stem cells are unlikely to result in the medical advances that some of its proponents claim. In Reproduction, Fertility and Development, Professor Trounson said:
… it is unlikely that large numbers of mature human oocytes would be available for the production of ES — embryonic stem — cells, particularly if hundreds are required to produce each ES cell line. The technical capability for nuclear transfer would also need to be widely available and this is unlikely.
There are many deficiencies, technically as well as ethically, with embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells have an inherent tendency towards explosive growth. Attempts to use embryonic stem cells have so far invariably led to the development of extremely aggressive tumours. This has been the case in animal trials and, indeed, human trials — for example, last year embryonic stem cells caused cancer in every single one of the rats into which they were injected. It seems very doubtful that such an inherent tendency will ever be overcome.
Furthermore, although it seems likely upon initial consideration that clones might eventually provide rejection-free transplants, there are very good scientific reasons for thinking that this is actually quite unlikely. It seems that, to put it simply, the very act of cloning damages the clone’s cells rendering them unsuitable for transplantation. Quoting Professor Trounson again from the same document:
… epigenetic remnants of the somatic cell used as the nuclear donor can cause major functional problems in development … which must remain a concern for ES cells derived by nuclear transfer.
It also states:
… it would appear unlikely that these strategies will be used extensively for producing ES cells compatible for transplantation.
Embryonic stem cells collect mutations, and the stem cells will very probably be degraded by the process of cloning itself. This is likely to contribute to their tendency to produce tumours when transplanted and cause them to be much less effective in transplants than we might hope for. This might partially explain why Dolly was plagued by health problems and only lived to be half the life span of a normal sheep. In addition, of course, the clone is genetically the age of the donor at the time of donation. From conception the clone is genetically the age of the donor.
In the United States of America last month Senator Brownback of Kansas put the score for embryonic stem cell research as 613 to zero. That is $613 million of US federal government money, plus a lot more from other levels of government plus non-government sources, including $3 billion presumably that Mr Drum referred to earlier. The results? Zero! Nothing useful has so far come from this investment. How much more might have come from investment in other, more effective stem cell technologies?
Embarking on the embryonic cloning path is likely to actually detract from medical advances by leading away from other avenues of research that are not only much more ethical but also more promising. Research on different types of non-embryonic stem cells have already shown great results and amazing promise.
First, adult stem cells. Adult stem cells grow in an ordered, regular way. Research with adult stem cells, which does not involve the destruction of human life, has so far led to more than 70 cures or treatments for conditions including Parkinson’s disease, liver cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Adult stem cell technologies were recently shown to deliver results for people with spinal cord injuries, such as those treated by Dr Carlos Lima in Portugal, who reported last year on the transplant of nasal stem cells into seven patients with long-term spinal cord injury. Breakthroughs based on adult stem cells are announced almost weekly, including a Melbourne-based one in the treatment of heart attacks reported on 3 April this year.
Professor Alan Mackay-Sim of Brisbane, neuroscientist and researcher and Queenslander of the Year for 2003, has said that adult stem cells can do everything that is hoped embryonic stem cells might be able to do. They can be obtained from a range of disease sufferers and can be tweaked into the relevant cell type for genetic study and cell testing. Professor Mackay-Sim considers adult stem cells to be superior to embryonic stem cells, because they do not carry the genetic damage caused by the cloning process, they do not incorporate mitochondrial DNA, are more easily and cheaply obtained and readily multiplied and more stable genetically.
The potential of adult stem cells alone has rendered the case for cloning, as Professor Mackay-Sim puts it, irrelevant and impractical. Irrelevant and impractical — that is what Professor Mackay-Sim, Queenslander of the Year and scientist, says about embryonic stem cells. That potential has been demonstrated by the development of treatments or cures for 26 types of cancers including the brain tumours medulloblastoma and glioma, retinoblastoma, ovarian cancer, the skin cancer merkel cell carcinoma, testicular cancer, tumours abdominal organs lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are 73 diseases and illnesses listed in this document which are now curable or treatable, to some extent at least, because of research done on adult stem cells. Each listing has a peer review journal reference. In fact, this is slightly out of date because it does not include the breakthrough announced in Melbourne last month, which I referred to earlier.
What do all of these treatments mean in practice? This is the practical reality. Edward Bailey, a 65-year-old Englishman, could not believe it. For 10 years all he had seen were shades of black and grey. After an operation using adult stem cells a nurse came by and he saw a flash of blue from her uniform. He went home and when he took the eye patch off he had his vision back. He observed that it is only when you lose something like sight that you realise how precious it is.
Surely these proven results by themselves would be enough for us to conclude that stem cell research on embryos is not the right path, but there is a lot more.
Umbilical cord blood cells are being used in a host of treatments, and not only by those who have had their umbilical cords stored for them, an increasingly popular practice in the United States. One of the many people who have benefited from umbilical cord blood stem cells is American Nathan Salley, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at the age of 11 in 1997. In 1999 he was one of seven children to receive a cord blood transplant. In testimony before a congressional committee in 2001 Salley proudly declared that he was living proof that there are promising and useful alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and that embryos do not need to be destroyed to achieve medical breakthroughs.
In addition reports from the Presidential Commission on Bioethics say there are five methods undergoing development by which embryonic stem cell research may be possible without destroying embryos.
Amniotic stem cells are an even more exciting alternative. In January of this year, following the passage of the commonwealth legislation, it was announced in the United States that research had shown the potential of amniotic cells for medical research and treatment. Amniotic cells are cells taken from the fluid surrounding the foetus in the womb or from the placenta, which is normally thrown away following birth. Embryos do not need to be destroyed to obtain these amniotic cells. People do not need to be harmed and eggs do not need to be harvested.
The research was widely reported including in Newsweek on 7 January. The Newsweek article is titled ‘A new era begins’. Following the passage of the act on which this bill is based, a new era has begun. The article says that amniotic stem cells rival embryonic stem cells in their ability to multiply and transform into many different cell types. Furthermore they can be obtained harmlessly as a by-product of amniocentesis or from placentas, which as I said are normally thrown away following birth.
Amniotic stem cells are pluripotent — that is, able to transform into fully grown cells representing each of the three major kinds of tissue found in the body. The scientists were able to create in the laboratory nerve cells, liver cells, endothelial cells — which line blood vessels — and cells involved in the creation of bone, muscle and fat. Some scientists even coaxed amniotic cells into becoming structures found in the kidneys. Some of the amniotic cells functioned as they would be expected to in the human body. The liver cells secreted urea, an activity otherwise seen exclusively in their natural counterparts. Relevant to Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders, the laboratory’s nerve cells secreted glutamate, a neurotransmitter which is crucial to memory and which helps to form dopamine. Tests were also done on mice with a neurodegenerative disease. These showed that the amniotic cells sought out and repopulated damaged areas of the brain.
Amniotic stem cells multiply quickly and are remarkably long lived. The laboratory’s cells divided more than 250 times. They are very tolerant to low oxygen, which makes it easier to manipulate them in the laboratory. It also means that once they are transplanted into a body they can live for quite a long time until the body sends out blood vessels to feed them. I sent a copy of this report to all members. If they read it they will see that amniotic fluid stem cells do not cause tumours, and they apparently provoke very little immune response when implanted, although why that is so is not understood.
Late in 2006 a Swiss team reported that it had temporarily been able to grow human heart valves from cells found in amniotic fluid. The Newsweek article concludes by stating:
It’s a future that’s suddenly looking brighter.
Not only is it a new era, but it is a very bright new era full of promise, promise from amniotic not embryonic stem cells.
Since the passage of the commonwealth legislation on which the current bill is based a new alternative to embryonic stem cells has been reported. This alternative does not require the destruction of human embryos. It does not jeopardise the health of women. It does not cause cancer. It does not provoke a strong rejection response. It has been proven to be feasible and to do things that only in our wildest dreams might we have hoped it could do. In short, amniotic stem cells show every promise of being vastly superior ethically and technologically to embryonic stem cells.
In view of the evidence it is reasonable to conclude that each of these alternative, ethical stem cell methods by itself — adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells — exceeds the technological potential of embryonic stem cells. If they do not individually, then the evidence is overwhelming that collectively they certainly exceed the potential of embryonic stem cells.
Human cloning, on which this bill is based, has not yet been achieved. There is some doubt that it can be done, although I suspect that it is possible. According to my understanding it is normal practice, however, before research theories are carried out on humans, to demonstrate proof of concept — that is, that what is proposed can actually be done by showing that it can be done on animals, particularly apes. There has been no proof of concept with embryonic stem cells; there have been no valuable treatments or cures to have come from embryonic stem cells in animals yet. This is just one example of this particular bill not conforming to established safeguards and procedures.
I would like to add on the subject of apes that a few weeks ago I was watching television at home, flicking through the channels, when I came across a documentary on the apes of the world. The makers of the program began by asking, ‘In what way are we human beings really different from apes?’. The film crew went all around the world, and it filmed gorillas in Africa. The makers asked the question, ‘Can apes make tools?’ They showed a film of the gorillas twisting pieces of straw and grass in a certain way to make a tool for scraping out ants from ant holes and then eating the ants. They then said, ‘Obviously we are not unique in being able to produce tools, what about in terms of foresight?’
They then filmed in the Amazon a much smaller ape. They showed a monkey going to a tree which had very delicious fruit, but the fruit could not be eaten by the monkey unless it first made a tiny hole in the fruit, sucked the juice out and left the fruit for four days, after which, the monkey had learned, it was dry enough to be able to be opened and eaten. So we human beings are not unique in our ability to make tools. We are not unique in our capacity for foresight. The makers of the program asked, ‘How are we unique?’ and answered that we human beings and only we human beings have ethics. According to the makers of the program that is the one, single, solitary difference between us and other primates.
We are indeed on a slippery slope. We are not at the peak of it; we are halfway down and gathering momentum. If members do not believe that, I ask them to please just consider that in the year 2002 the commonwealth Parliament unanimously — every single member — voted to ban cloning, yet here we are only five years later and it seems we are about to authorise the practice of cloning in Victoria. The public has been led to believe that the members of this Parliament will be voting according to their consciences. Members of large parties will know if that is true or not. If that is not true, members may decide that their honour demands that they show integrity and independence in their vote. A dictionary will define honour as the ability to tell right from wrong. To me honour has always meant not exploiting others, and above all never using what is good about others against them.
All of us here, every single one of us, throughout our lives have seen people we love suffer from ailments and have desperately wished they could be cured. Every one of us here loves people who we hope might benefit from medical breakthroughs. I think a lot of us here hope that we ourselves might benefit in the future from yet to be discovered medical technologies. I do. We also probably hope for the uplifting of humanity, for relief from pain for everyone throughout the world and for an end to disease and suffering for human beings generally.
There are better ways, however, than those proposed by this bill — vastly better ethnically and much better technologically. The bill before us is technically far from good parliamentary practice. More importantly, it seeks to allow the destruction of human embryos on the false premise that this is good science. It is not good science. Happily, with respect to stem cell research good science coincides with good ethics. The bill proposes medical technology which is not only ethically repugnant but scientifically obsolete, redundant and unnecessary. In this very fast-changing world of bioethical technology, embryonic stem cell research should be considered to be not from the age of black-and-white television but from the age of the overland telegraph. It is already redundant.
To vote for this bill would be to support the destruction of cloned embryos; and, I suppose, their creation or their engineering. The evidence shows that it will also be a vote to hamper medical advances, to slow the development of therapeutic technologies, and to delay the discovery of new cures and treatments. It has been suggested that we do not profit anything at all if we sell our souls, even if we gain the whole world in exchange. How much less do we profit when we accept what we know to be profoundly wrong and get nothing in exchange?
The passage of this bill will not advance the cause of medical research; it will block it by directing resources to a field of study which is not only wrong in principle but technologically unpromising. The Faustian bargain proposed by this bill would destroy nascent human life, distract from superior avenues of research, degrade those it seeks to benefit and damage women even to the point of death — and surely the passage of this bill would also diminish our selves.
President, if the bill is passed, I would like to move that it be sent to the Legislation Committee.
See http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/asc-refs.pdf
for 180 peer reviewed references
Friday, 10 August 2007
Media 2007-08-08 Shannon Park Scope Facility
Shannon Park is a facility in the Geelong area that provides specialised services to the severely, multiply disabled. Scope (formerly the Spastic Society) has recently decided to sell part of the Shannon Park site.
Peter Kavanagh, Democratic Labor Party Member for Western Victoria last night in parliament asked Mr. Gavin Jennings as representative for the new Minister for Community Services, Lisa Neville, for assurances as to the future service levels to be provided by Shannon Park.
"My question is for the Minister for Community Services in the other house and relates to Shannon Park, a facility for the disabled in Greater Geelong run by Scope, formerly known as the Spastic Society of Victoria. In previous decades Shannon Park was an outstanding leader in its field. Because of long‑term policies, however, to integrate the disabled into the community Shannon Park has been in relative decline. The multiply severely disabled are not in a position to benefit from community integration. Today around 28 multiply severely disabled people receive specialised care and therapies at Shannon Park. Scope has announced plans to sell much of the Shannon Park site, and although Scope has undertaken to retain services at Shannon Park its reassurances are less than iron clad and not entirely reassuring to the people at Shannon Park or their parents. The parents of the patients at Shannon Park are gravely concerned about the future of Shannon Park, including the hydrotherapy pool, which Shannon Park offers, the sensory garden and continuing lifestyle options program. What assurances can the minister give to Shannon Park's multiply severely disabled patients and their parents that Shannon Park's specialised facilities and services will continue at Shannon Park into the future?"
For further comment please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
Peter Kavanagh, Democratic Labor Party Member for Western Victoria last night in parliament asked Mr. Gavin Jennings as representative for the new Minister for Community Services, Lisa Neville, for assurances as to the future service levels to be provided by Shannon Park.
"My question is for the Minister for Community Services in the other house and relates to Shannon Park, a facility for the disabled in Greater Geelong run by Scope, formerly known as the Spastic Society of Victoria. In previous decades Shannon Park was an outstanding leader in its field. Because of long‑term policies, however, to integrate the disabled into the community Shannon Park has been in relative decline. The multiply severely disabled are not in a position to benefit from community integration. Today around 28 multiply severely disabled people receive specialised care and therapies at Shannon Park. Scope has announced plans to sell much of the Shannon Park site, and although Scope has undertaken to retain services at Shannon Park its reassurances are less than iron clad and not entirely reassuring to the people at Shannon Park or their parents. The parents of the patients at Shannon Park are gravely concerned about the future of Shannon Park, including the hydrotherapy pool, which Shannon Park offers, the sensory garden and continuing lifestyle options program. What assurances can the minister give to Shannon Park's multiply severely disabled patients and their parents that Shannon Park's specialised facilities and services will continue at Shannon Park into the future?"
For further comment please call Peter Kavanagh on 03 5222 1503.
Monday, 21 May 2007
About Peter Kavanagh MLC
Peter Kavanagh has been a Member of the Legislative Council upper house in the State Parliament of Victoria representing Western Victoria region since the 2006 election.
Peter is the first politician to be elected from the Democratic Labor Party in Australia for about 30 years.
Peter Kavanagh was born in Melbourne in 1959. A teacher from Essendon, in Melbourne’s West, he grew up in the north-western suburbs of Melbourne. He has had a life-long interest in politics, inspired by his family’s contribution over generations. He is the grandson of Bill Barry, first leader of what became known as the Democratic Labor Party.
Peter completed secondary school at St. Joseph’s College, North Melbourne 1976. He has among the most extensive academic record of any graduate of the University of Melbourne, and an extremely broad background in formal and informal studies relevant to policy development. He has Degrees in Law, Arts and Letters, a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Studies and Master’s Degree in Asian Studies and has completed a Diploma in Education.
He has studied languages at Beijing Language Institute (now Beijing University of Language and Culture), the Nanjing National Normal University, the Mandarin Training Centre in Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Institute in Tokyo, and Scuola Leonardo Da Vinci in Rome.
Peter has a particular interest in East Asia and speaks three East Asian languages (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian/Malay). He has traveled Australia and much of the rest of the world, especially East Asia, over the last twenty-five years.
Peter studied Law at the University of Melbourne, was admitted to practice by the High Court of Australia in 1992, and was a practitioner at the Victorian Bar in 1993 and 1994. He then lectured in Australian Law at tertiary level in Malaysia for almost two years.
He has traveled to approximately thirty-five countries, including all the ASEAN countries. Has spent approximately two years in China, including Taiwan.
His main academic and personal interests are:
* Australian law
* Chinese and Indonesian law
* Asian cultures
* Japanese law, especially the Japanese Constitution
* Politics and history, especially the politics of our near neighbours
* Languages (Mandarin, Japanese, and Indonesian)
* Foreign investment
* Economic development.
Peter is the first politician to be elected from the Democratic Labor Party in Australia for about 30 years.
Peter Kavanagh was born in Melbourne in 1959. A teacher from Essendon, in Melbourne’s West, he grew up in the north-western suburbs of Melbourne. He has had a life-long interest in politics, inspired by his family’s contribution over generations. He is the grandson of Bill Barry, first leader of what became known as the Democratic Labor Party.
Peter completed secondary school at St. Joseph’s College, North Melbourne 1976. He has among the most extensive academic record of any graduate of the University of Melbourne, and an extremely broad background in formal and informal studies relevant to policy development. He has Degrees in Law, Arts and Letters, a Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Studies and Master’s Degree in Asian Studies and has completed a Diploma in Education.
He has studied languages at Beijing Language Institute (now Beijing University of Language and Culture), the Nanjing National Normal University, the Mandarin Training Centre in Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Institute in Tokyo, and Scuola Leonardo Da Vinci in Rome.
Peter has a particular interest in East Asia and speaks three East Asian languages (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian/Malay). He has traveled Australia and much of the rest of the world, especially East Asia, over the last twenty-five years.
Peter studied Law at the University of Melbourne, was admitted to practice by the High Court of Australia in 1992, and was a practitioner at the Victorian Bar in 1993 and 1994. He then lectured in Australian Law at tertiary level in Malaysia for almost two years.
He has traveled to approximately thirty-five countries, including all the ASEAN countries. Has spent approximately two years in China, including Taiwan.
His main academic and personal interests are:
* Australian law
* Chinese and Indonesian law
* Asian cultures
* Japanese law, especially the Japanese Constitution
* Politics and history, especially the politics of our near neighbours
* Languages (Mandarin, Japanese, and Indonesian)
* Foreign investment
* Economic development.
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