Organ transplant groups have rejected calls for healthy people to be able to sell their organs to desperate patients.
Kidney specialist Gavin Carney says that overturning laws preventing the sale of organs would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars caring for patients who have to wait up to 10 years for a donor kidney.
There are currently some 1,800 people on the waiting list for a kidney but Australian laws prevent buying and selling organs.
Kidney Australia Director Doctor Tim Matthews says allowing people to charge up to $50,000 for their body parts would only attract the poor and desperate.
“The only people who put their hands up to do this will be those who are desperate,” he claimed.
“We think that’s unfair, particularly [because] there’s no precedent for trading in body parts in Australia - it’s against our culture.”