Australia Cannot Stay Silent
Senator Paul Scarr spoke at the debate on the Amendment on August 15. (Photo courtesy Australia Senate website)
Liberal National Senator Paul Scarr, when speaking at the debate, quoted the press release from the UN Special Reporters in June 2016. The press release states that Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians in detention in China may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations without their informed consent, and the results of the examinations are registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation.
“I note that the United Kingdom amended the Human Tissue Act in the UK to deal with this issue. Also, there have been steps in Canada to amend the Criminal Code in relation to this matter. So we need to be in step with our international partners.
“We cannot stay silent on these issues. We have a moral obligation to raise them, and I do so in good faith here today.”
National Party Senator Ross Cadell spoke at the debate on the Amendment on August 15. (Photo courtesy Australia Senate website)
National Party Senator Ross Cadell said in the debate on August 15 that the bill may not ensure 100% compliance with filling out the card, but it will start building an information bank that can help Australia identify potential illegal organ trades in the future. He said, “... if I, for the first time, go overseas and I get an organ donation and I do it the wrong way, I come back to Australia, I’m committing no crime in Australia.” Somewhere in the world, however, “... someone has suffered to give me that, maybe without their consent, maybe because they are so economically hard off that they have had to do this. The cost to the Australian taxpayer, minimal, new cards and a bit of data processing, The potential benefit to those that have the least power in this world is magnificent.”
Senator James McGrath spoke at the debate on the Amendment on August 15. (Photo courtesy Australia Senate website)
Liberal National Senator James McGrath paid special tribute to Falun Gong practitioners listening in the debate on August 15. “I would also acknowledge those who are in the gallery who are witnessing and observing the debate that is in this chamber concerning this particular bill,” he said.
Senator McGrath quoted the UN’s 2021 report stating that the UN has effective evidence of trafficking of human organs. He said, “That is outrageous. That should make everybody in this chamber very angry. It should make everybody listening, whether in this chamber or in the galleries of this chamber or through the closed circuit televisions that operate through this building, that there is a country in this world that effectively commercialises the forced trafficking of organs, and that is why this bill is so timely.”
At the end of his speech, he said, “What this bill does will make sure that we will do more and we should do more. No human, whether they are Falun Gong, Uyghur, Tibetan, Christian, Muslim, or Chinese, who are in communist China, who may be in detention, should be put into a sub-human system of where they are treated as commercial products to be harvested as someone would pick or pull a carrot from the ground or an apple from a tree. We are talking about humans here.”
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