Gene Technology (Adoption of Commonwealth Amendments) Amendment Bill
Wednesday 8 February 2022
Ms CLANCY (Elder) (17:05): I rise today in support of the Gene Technology (Adoption of Commonwealth Amendments) Amendment Bill. The crux of this bill is to improve consistency between commonwealth and state legislation. At the moment, whenever a change is made in the gene technology space on a federal level, we need to undertake a full legislative process in our state parliament, and that can take some time. Not only is this process lengthy but it is also quite inefficient. It can take months for a review of the commonwealth changes, a drafting of the bill to amend the SA Gene Technology Act and then to pass through both houses of our parliament.
The bill we are discussing today means that, instead of going through this extensive process, the changes can instead be made by regulation. That does not mean it will be a simple tick and flick without any review. It is really important to know that under this change parliament will still retain the right to review and disallow regulations. Objectionable amendments can be disallowed, which allows the parliament to have scrutiny. Also, changes to the commonwealth legislation are only currently able to be made through the gene technology forum and following full public consultation. Our Minister for Health, Minister Picton, is South Australia's representative on the forum.
Changes to the commonwealth Gene Technology Act and subordinate legislation are now not uncommon. These pieces of legislation are amended on a regular basis, which can lead to misalignment to state legislation and cause unnecessary confusion to operators across jurisdictions, hence the requirement for this bill. A similar bill was introduced by the former government and was supported by Labor but did not progress. In fact, the model adopted in this bill is the same as the one approved by the previous Minister for Health and Wellbeing, so we look forward to working constructively with those opposite for it to progress through both houses.
In South Australia, gene technology is used for a broad range of applications, primarily by our university sector and other researchers. The following are a few examples of work happening here in SA:
in 2018, Adelaide University conducted medical research into mitochondrial disease, where pigs were genetically modified to have extra copies of mitochondrial DNA in their reproductive cells;
the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) manages the Australian Pastures Genebank, which provides a databank of genetic material for more than 70,000 plants;
ongoing research by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and SA Pathology into blood cancers, including the genetic inheritance of these conditions; and
the Department of Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA) supports a number of agtech developments, including the use of gene technology, to enable more efficient primary production practices in SA.
Gene technology can be used:
in agriculture, aquaculture and livestock (for example, in the development of crops that are genetically adapted to meet environmental stresses caused by climate change);
in the study of diseases; and
as a control measure to alter the fertility of pests.
The commonwealth government is likely to change their legislation in the near future, so adopting this bill will help ensure that our legislation is not out of date and makes the process more efficient.
The previous health minister's bill was introduced late in the last parliamentary sitting; however, support was indicated by the then Labor opposition. Tasmania, Northern Territory and Queensland already apply the commonwealth laws with the ability to modify through regulation, so this is not a novel idea but one that will make a semi-regular occurrence more efficient. I commend the bill to the house.
