Australian children born from sperm or egg donation should have the right to track their biological parents with the help of a national register, according to a report tabled in the Senate this week.

The lack of legislation on donor conception in any of the Australian territories was described as “quite appalling” by Labour Northern Territory Senator Trish Crossin.

In Ireland, the Assisted Human Reproduction industry, including IVF and donor conception services is completely unregulated.

Tasmania, Queensland, the Australian Capital territory and the Northern Territory have no laws at all regarding donor conception practices.

Estimates suggest there are at least 20,000 and possibly as many as 60,000 donor-conceived people in Australia.

The committee made 32 recommendations, including a limit of four families whom donors can assist.

It found that many children feared inadvertently marrying a half-sibling, although a sceptical fertility specialist from Canberra said, “there is no adjective which accurately describes just how tiny this chance really is”.

However, the committee found that donor conceived people may have up to twenty genetic half-siblings. This hampers their ability to make “sense of their identity and what ‘family’ means for them”

The committee also stuck to a ban on payment for sperm or eggs, other than “reasonable expenses” – although it found that clinics differ on how much this should be.

Like similar reports from other countries, this one contains some emotional statements from children.

One woman said, “I cannot begin to describe how dehumanising and powerless I am to know that the name and details about my biological father and my entire paternal family sit somewhere in a filing cabinet… with no means to access it. Information about my own family, my roots, my identity, I am told I have no right to know.”

It is believed that the Australian IVF industry will reject the committee’s comments, which suggested that its accreditation process seems to have broken down and is not transparent.

The committee also calls for national regulation and suggests that an ombudsman may be needed and added that the importation of sperm – which has already become a cottage industry – should be banned.

In 2009, the Iona Institute published a paper, Making Babies: Regulating the AHR Industry, calling for a child-centred AHR policy, ensuring that children had the greatest possible access to their biological parents, and ensuring that, where possible, only married parents would be allowed to access AHR services.