Australia Supported Total Cloning Ban at U N. (December 9, 2004)

    Last week The Scientist ran an article by Ray Welling headed:

Aussie backflip on cloning

Gov't support for UN cloning ban surprises scientists ahead of a national legislative review

Welling reports that contrary to Australia's previous position at the United Nations in support of a proposal put forward by Belgium and supported by the United Kingdom and others  that would not forbid cell nuclear replacement for stem cell generation the Australian delegation to the UN General Assembly voted for a proposal by Costa Rica and supported by the United States and about 60 other countries to ban any form of cloning of human material. The end result has been that the UN has essentially washed its hands of the matter and is now working toward writing a non-binding political declaration.

Welling reports that Robert Saint, director of the Centre for the Molecular Genetics of Development at the Australian National University said, "No one I've spoken to knew Australia had supported that view," while Australian Democrat science spokeswomen Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja said, "...this has happened without consultation, without review. In fact, it pre-empts a review of Australia's legislation, and we'd like to know who is driving this agenda."

The Scientist also reports, "Alan Trounson, head of the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, who led a scientific delegation that spoke in New York earlier this year against the Costa Rica proposal, told The Australian that he feared the government's 'unfortunate' stance might hinder a 'genuine and open discussion' on therapeutic cloning."

What has exercised stem cells researchers is that the parliamentary review to examine a 3-year-old law that prohibits the use of human cloning for research will be led by health minister Tony Abbott, who is on record as opposing therapeutic cloning and that voting preferences from the new Family First Party, whose leaders are closely linked with the Christian fundamentalist movement in Australia were directed to the Australian Liberal Party.

Interestingly although Australia had previously supported  therapeutic cloning at the UN, Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer told the media, Australia's vote at the UN was "just upholding Australian law. This sort of conspiracy theory that somebody's lurched in from the far right of some church or something and told us that we should change our position and we decided to respond to that, is just complete nonsense."