Progress to date of third review of the National Gene Technology Scheme 2017 and Technical Review of the Gene Technology Regulations 2001.
Third review of the National Gene Technology Scheme 2017
In July 2017 the Legislative and Governance Forum on Gene Technology (the Forum) announced the third review (the review) of the National Gene Technology Regulation Scheme (the Scheme).
The Review provided Australian governments with the opportunity to consider appropriate policy settings for gene technology regulation, aiming to achieve policy objective to protect the health of Australians and the environment.
To progress the action plan, in September 2019, an Issues Paper - Implementing Recommendations of the Third Review of the Gene Technology Scheme: Phase 1 Consultation - was released for consultation.
This paper explored implementation of a number of prioritised Review recommendations. Consultation was open until early December 2019 and the feedback received assisted Forum consideration of options for a revised regulatory framework in which to deliver Review recommendations.
In mid-2020 the Forum considered options to implement priority Review recommendations within a revised regulatory framework. Following the Forum consideration on 11 December 2020 the Forum endorsed the release of consultation documents (a Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (Consultation-RIS) and accompanying Explanatory Paper) outlining options to implement Review recommendations within a revised regulatory framework.
This consultation documents offers stakeholders the opportunity to provide feedback on a regulatory framework to support implementation of the Third Review recommendations.
The C-RIS and Explanatory paper are now open for public comments. Go to the National Gene Technology Scheme web pages Consultation Hub [1], to download copies of the C-RIS and Explanatory paper and for details about how you can contribute to the consultation. Contributions to the consultation opened 14 December 2020 and closes 17 March 2021.
Technical Review of the Gene Technology Regulations 2001
In 2016 the Gene Technology Regulator (the Regulator) conducted a technical review of the Gene Technology Regulations 2001 (the Technical Review) to clarify the regulatory status of organisms developed using a range of new technologies, and ensure that the new technologies are regulated in a manner commensurate with the risks they pose.
Following an extensive consultation process since 2016, in April 2019 the Legislative and Governance Forum on Gene Technology (the Forum) agreed to amendments to the Regulations made under the Gene Technology Act 2000.
Further information is available from the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator website [2].