Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure and Other Measures) Bill 2026
20 August 2026: Senator Dean Smith (Western Australia) has introduced the “Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure) Bill 2026” in the Australian Senate. This Bill strengthens Australia’s efforts to combat illegal and unethical organ harvesting. It is substantially the same as the bill Senator Smith introduced in the 47th Parliament, which passed the Senate in August 2024.
From Senator Smith speech:
“The amendments proposed in the Migration Amendment (Overseas Organ Transplant Disclosure) Bill 2026 are sensible and non-controversial, but they are also meaningful improvements that will advance Australia’s mission to uphold and enhance human rights – both here and around the world.
Organ trafficking is a uniquely appalling violation of the dignity of the individual, defined by the unethical removal, transfer, or commercialisation of human organs for transplantation outside of legal frameworks.”
What the Bill does
The amendments provided for in this bill:
- add a requirement to Australia’s migration framework, via additional questions on the Incoming Passenger Card, that requires mandatory disclosures from all persons seeking entry to Australia of any organ transplants outside Australia within the last five years; and
- where a transplant is disclosed, the individual will be required to report the name of the medical facility where that transplant occurred, and the town and/or city and country of the facility.
The resulting data will then be made available to the responsible Minister, who will be required to table an annual report in the Parliament detailing:
- the number of times persons entering Australia have answered that they received an organ transplant outside Australia within the last five years; and
- the town or city and country where the organ transplant took place, and the number of times each place was specified.
These measures are purposefully designed to assist in global efforts to prevent organ trafficking.
Australia’s approach thus far
In 2005, the Australian Government criminalised organ trafficking under the Criminal Code Act 1995 and, in 2013, strengthened the Commonwealth Criminal Code by introducing four stand-alone organ trafficking offences. Australia’s organ trafficking offences criminalise the movement of people to, from, or within Australia for the unlawful removal of their organs. An organ does not have to be removed for an organ trafficking offence to be committed.
In addition, Australia has several non-legislative measures in place, including training programs for officials in law enforcement, immigration compliance, the Fair Work Ombudsman, and diplomatic and consular positions, to increase awareness of the indicators of organ trafficking.
The incidence of organ harvesting and trafficking
“When organs are provided to recipients through illicit means of coercion or compulsion, the result is a tragedy in which one human life is prized more than another. This represents an egregious attack on the foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the commitment contained within it that ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’.
Every time a person is pressured to sell an organ to another, or when a prisoner of conscience is executed and their organs harvested, this principle of universal human equality and dignity is transgressed.”
The clandestine nature of harvesting and trafficking makes the trade difficult to quantify. However, concerns about its scale are justified given the significant imbalance between the number of patients globally awaiting an organ transplant and the limited availability of consensual, legal organs.
The bill fulfils key recommendations of the *Compassion, Not Commerce* report, including:
- Recommendation 2: the need to monitor transplantation practices of other countries with regard to consistency with human rights obligations, including with regard to the use of the organs of executed prisoners; and
- Recommendation 4: the need for suitably anonymised data regarding the participation by Australians in overseas commercial transplants.
Of particular relevance is the Australian Government’s evidence to the Joint Standing Committee citing the June 2021 report of 12 UN Special Procedures experts, which identified “credible evidence” that ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be subject to organ harvesting in our region. Deakin University has also reported that the global deficit of ethical organs has resulted in a black market of more than 10,000 unethical transplants a year — more than one every hour.
Consistency with international efforts
The amendments in the bill complement efforts taken internationally. In May 2021, the United Kingdom House of Lords amended the *Human Tissue Act 2004* following passage of the Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill. That bill prohibits UK citizens and residents from travelling internationally to receive transplant material obtained without the consent of a donor and the donor’s next of kin. In December 2022, the Canadian Parliament amended the Criminal Code and the *Immigration and Refugee Protection Act* to create new offences relating to trafficking in human organs and to provide for inadmissibility on related grounds, with a penalty of 14 years in prison.
“While there are limitations regarding the extent to which we, as Australians, can prevent human rights violations abroad, Australia maintains a responsibility to do everything within our parliamentary mechanisms to uphold the inviolability of universal human dignity.
It is not enough to be a signatory to international conventions such as the *Universal Declaration of Human Rights*, or the *Genocide Convention*, without doing what we can to ensure the tenets of these conventions are upheld globally. The amendments proposed in this bill are a step forward toward that eternal and noble goal.”
Conclusion
“This bill is designed to implement practical and least intrusive tools to support global efforts in combatting organ trafficking. This bill should be seen as a sensible and timely initiative that adds to the suite of measures that have already been incorporated in the law and supports other non-legislative actions being used by Australian authorities.”
