On 12 November 2008, Senator Heffernan announced that a Senate Inquiry would be launched to examine gene patents, saying: "Patents should be for inventions, not for naturally occurring genes." The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs was to inquire into the granting of patent monopolies in Australia over human and microbial genes and non-coding sequences, proteins and their derivatives. Heffernan said "the granting of gene patents has the potential to have a detrimental impact on healthcare costs, medical research, provision of training and accreditation for healthcare professionals as well as the health and wellbeing of all Australians." "Patents should be for inventions not for naturally occurring genes, these patents will disrupt future breast and prostate cancer testing and research", Heffernan said. Following the launch of the Senate Inquiry into Gene Patents by Heffernan, Mervyn Jacobsen, the founder and 40 per cent shareholder of the Melbourne company Genetic Technologies, which holds the patents for BRCA1 and BRCA2, backed down from threatened legal action. On 19 February 2016, Heffernan announced he would not be a candidate at the 2016 federal election, and would retire at the end of his current term. His term ended at the double dissolution of 9 May 2016. Criticisms of public figures Justice Kirby and subsequent parliamentary censure On 12 March 2002, speaking in the Senate under parliamentary privilege, Heffernan made accusations against a serving judge. Only at the end of this speech did Heffernan make it clear that the judge he was referring to was Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. Senators John Faulkner and Robert Ray (Labor) and Aden Ridgeway (Australian Democrats) each alleged that Heffernan had deliberately structured his speech this way in order to conceal the fact that he was violating parliamentary standing orders. Standing Order 193 prohibits senators from making "imputations of improper motives or personal reflections" on currently serving judicial officers. Heffernan's allegations against Kirby included the inappropriate use of a Commonwealth car to solicit sex from an under-age male prostitute, and to support these claims he produced what appeared to be a driver's log book recording the alleged trip. The documents were found to be a forgery. Heffernan came under prolonged political pressure as a result of this episode, and was eventually asked by Prime Minister John Howard to resign his post as Parliamentary Secretary, which he did. On 19 March, he made a statement to the Senate