Woodhouse Michael: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Woodhouse Michael: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology (Storage) Amendment Bill. I am a little disappointed to have to withdraw the chocolate fish offer; at this stage it is being held in suspension. I am sure that the member Ms Dyson who said she would take another call is open to redemption and I will tell her why the chocolate fish was withdrawn. But if it is replaced I think the gold star would be more appropriately attached to a chocolate egg given the subject of the bill that we are considering in Committee. The reason the chocolate fish offer has been withdrawn is that in the member’s efforts to criticise the Minister for what she said was on the face of it a complete rewrite of the bill after it came to the Health Committee she cast a criticism on the officials who were supporting the select committee through the consideration of the bill. I think that is grossly unfair. 
I will start by commending the officials who I think did an outstanding job of articulating and answering the questions of the select committee and the submitters about what the bill meant and about what was intended from a policy perspective. Yes on the face of it it looks as though it is a pretty substantial rewrite but it is a technical deletion of one clause and a replacement of another clause which in substance does not have a lot of changes to it. I commend the officials. I think they did a really good job. 
There was bipartisan support across the committee for the bill. In short answer I can add to the Minister’s answer to the question of whether we have got the bill right in terms of the policy intent by saying yes we have. I am not a Minister so we can call that my pitch for ministerial office but I am quite confident that we have got that right also. 
However some quite tricky questions were asked of the submitters particularly the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology and the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology that I think were outside the scope of the bill. That was largely where the debate was centred. We have solved the initial policy problem which was to give clarity to when the clock starts and when it should stop. I will touch on probably the more material change that the select committee recommended and that was in respect of whether the 10-year time frame should be a hard stop and therefore someone would be in breach of the Act on day one after 10 years had expired. We had a discussion that was more about the science behind that than about the time period and we certainly had the advantage of not only the officials’ counsel but the chairman’s counsel. The chairman has a great deal of experience in this area from his professional background. 
I was particularly interested in some of the recent legal changes in the United Kingdom. Changes to the equivalent legislation there have seen an extension to the regulations to allow in certain circumstances for the storage of embryos gametes and eggs for up to 55 years. That caused quite some consternation in the House of Lords. Lord Howe criticised the revised regulations that allowed embryos gametes and eggs to be stored for up to 55 years—not because of any particular problem with the science but because of the very dodgy ethical dilemmas that this produced. Incidentally the United Kingdom regulations were called the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Statutory Storage Period for Embryos and Gametes) Regulations a name that is twice as long as that of our legislation. The United Kingdom also had the benefit of somebody with a great deal of experience in that area. Lord Robert Winston who is a lifetime peer and also one of the world’s leading fertility scientists stressed that longer freezing times are not likely to produce a health risk. 
We can also enable extensions by allowing for the 10-year limit not to be a hard close. There are plenty of reasons why it might not be appropriate to dispose of embryos and gametes after that period so I think that was a very sensible change. I commend that change. I look forward to hearing from the member Ruth Dyson to see whether she can earn her chocolate egg with the gold star. I commend the bill to the Committee.