Mr ABBOTT (Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (11:01 AM) —Mr Speaker, thank you for the chance to say a few words on this important amendment moved by the member for Mitchell, and the subsequent amendment on a similar theme and topic. Perhaps I can say to the House that, of all the amendments which my colleagues the members for Mitchell and Sturt have put to the House, this is probably the most important. It is not that the others were unimportant, but this is probably the most important because it goes to the heart of what this parliament should be on about—and that is parliamentary sovereignty, parliamentary control over the things that we initiate. I support this amendment and I strongly support the next amendment because I support parliamentary sovereignty.

It is not that I do not admire the work of Australian scientists and it is not that I do not have considerable respect for the COAG process. I certainly support the ability of Australian scientists to do good work by good means. But I do not believe that it is always safe to trust people to be the judges in their own cause. If this bill is not amended, the scientists will be the judges in their own cause—and that is a very dangerous thing to extend to the scientists of Australia, for all their goodwill. In this debate and in this whole consideration of embryo research, we have already seen just how easily the ethical standards of the scientists can be corrupted and perverted by their enthusiasm for what they see as a good cause. We have already had here in this parliament a classic case of how people can get carried away in a good cause. I am sure that Dr Trounson is a good man, but he has behaved badly to make a point on at least three occasions that this parliament is aware of.

Firstly, before the coalition party room, Dr Trounson showed MPs a video of a crippled rat and referred to this rat as having been substantially helped by what he called an injection of embryonic stem cells. We now know that this was simply false, and we have no reason to think that Dr Trounson did not know that this was simply false when he made his claim. Secondly, he was asked for a written reference to back up his video and he referred to an article published, he said, by Nature Medicine online in August of this year. Again, there is no such article. There is no article to back up the research claims that he made to the coalition party room. Thirdly, Dr Trounson gave Senator Boswell and the party room an undertaking that he had no more shares in companies involved in the commercialisation of this research. However, press reports subsequent to that undertaking showed that he did have and continued to have shares in such companies.

As I say, I am sure that Dr Trounson is an essentially good man. But all of us know of the pressures that people come under to bend the rules and twist the truth in a good cause. That is why it is absolutely imperative that this parliament does not give away its sovereignty to the scientists. This amendment and the following amendment are extremely important and they should be supported in this House by everyone who supports the sovereignty of this House and the sovereignty of the Australian people as opposed to the sovereignty of the scientists.

I have given three examples of where Dr Allan Trounson, a good man who has bent the rules in what he regards as a good cause, has gone wrong. But let me give you another example of the kind of situation where even the best intentioned and the most highly qualified scientists can go horribly wrong. I do not believe that this parliament should allow the scientists to be the judges in their own cause, given their demonstrated ability and propensity to make terrible mistakes. I refer to a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine of March this year, which was subsequently written up—(Time expired)