Photo: © 2010 AP/Mahesh Kumara

The technology, which costs as much as $15,000 per use, is currently under a five-year moratorium which expires late this year.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says she feels "very uncomfortable" about the technology and says the Government is unlikely to push for a change to the current arrangement.

But IVF specialist, Professor Gab Kovacs, says some parents are already engaging in fertility tourism to the United States and Thailand, and believes there are no reasons to continue to support a ban on the treatment here.

"If a couple so badly want a boy or a girl they are prepared to go through IVF and sex selection at great cost and effort rather than getting pregnant naturally, then maybe if they had the child naturally and it was the wrong sex it may not be looked after as well," he says.