Page 1592 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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of the provisions, and agreement could not be reached. The matter was referred to the ACT Regulation Review Committee to resolve the issue. This committee resolved that (a) advertising is not intrinsically unethical or unprofessional; (b) no particular problems had arisen justifying the more restrictive approach; (c) the provisions were anticompetitive; and (d) the results may have been to increase cost for consumers by restricting the activities of the larger optical dispensers.
Before the Territory achieved self-government, the then Minister was in agreement with the repeal of the subsections, but events overtook the process and this was never completed. The Government is in agreement with the repeal of the subsections and wishes to proceed with legislation to complete the process started many years ago. The Optometrists Board favours the retention of the subsections in their present form to prevent the sharing of premises by optometrists and optical dispensers. It considers this to be unprofessional.
The Government does not necessarily believe that such arrangements are unprofessional and, in any case, these provisions do not have the effect claimed by the board as they relate solely to a prohibition on advertising. The Act still contains adequate provisions against unprofessional conduct. If advertising can be construed as unprofessional conduct, then this can be dealt with quite unambiguously, under the powers given to the Optometrists Board by the Act, by the remaining legislation.
The Government supports the view that companies and businesses should be allowed to operate without undue regulation that restricts their ability to compete on an equal basis with other businesses in the same field. Clearly, optometrists and optical dispensers work in the same field. They need to work together to provide a service to those in the community who require glasses and other optometrical appliances and it would be counter to a democratic society's principles to let one section of an industry advertise and not the other.
I stress that the provisions remain within the Act for the Optometrists Board to examine an optometrist on the ground of unprofessional conduct, and the Government sees no reason why certain "unprofessional" approaches to advertising might not still be questioned by the board. The Government, therefore, is in agreement with repealing the provisions that relate specifically to advertising. I now present the explanatory memorandum to the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mr Duby) adjourned.
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