Fed: Crean urges PM to seal stem cell agreement
MELBOURNE, April 5 AAP - Federal Opposition Leader Simon Crean today urged Prime MinisterJohn Howard to ensure a final agreement was reached on stem cell research with the statesat today's meeting.
"Today's premier's conference is a unique opportunity to get national agreement toenable important research into life-saving activity," Mr Crean told reporters in Melbournetoday.
"I hope the prime minister doesn't blow it.
"I urge him to adopt the lead that Labor has given in allowing the use of frozen embryosfor therapeutic research to occur, to not complicate it, and to reach final agreement.
"I pledge my support to backing legislation that achieves that, and I can deliver themajority of my party on this very important issue."
Mr Crean welcomed Mr Howard's announcement yesterday that he would allow surplus IVFembryos to be used for stem cell research, saying he had come some way on the issue.
But he said limiting the use of embryos to those created up until today, as proposedby Mr Howard, was an unnecessary restriction that would hamper research investment.
"There is no rationale as to why that distinction should be drawn, and it puts a limitationon the future development and research activities," Mr Crean said.
"It creates uncertainty for investment and research into these key areas.
"And what we want to do is to send a clear signal to our researchers that they shouldbe able to proceed, and not have to go offshore."
Mr Howard and state and territory leaders are holding the Council of Australian Governments
(COAG) meeting in Canberra today.
AAP bp/jlw/ns
KEYWORD: STEMCELL CREAN
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