Page 5245 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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Mr Berry: What about a lawyer?
MR HUMPHRIES: That is not what your amendment says, Mr Berry. It does not remove the word "health"; it just removes the whole subclause. Mr Deputy Speaker, the fact of the matter is that Mr Berry has got totally boxed up again. He does not know what he is talking about and again has the wrong end of the stick. The fact is that the medical profession would strongly endorse this provision because they certainly would not want to see a disbarred doctor sitting on the Board of Health, and they would not want to see disbarred lawyers either; but Mr Berry has not moved that amendment.
I will give Mr Berry an analogy which I think he would probably understand. Let us suppose that there was a provision for a particular union to appoint a person to serve on the board. Let us say that it was the Australian Nursing Federation. I am sure Mr Berry would be most anxious, if he were Minister for Health - God help us - to ensure the removal of that particular nominee of the Australian Nursing Federation if she or he happened to retire or resign from the union. Why? Because the person no longer fulfilled the essential qualification for being on the board.
Once again, in these situations, Mr Deputy Speaker, with clause 21(1)(b), it is essential that persons appointed to a position on the board by virtue of their being a health professional retain and maintain their membership of that particular medical profession or health profession during their service on the board. Clearly, if they ceased to be registered to practise under a law, if they were already in that category, they would not be eligible to remain on the board. It makes commonsense.
As I said, I think Mr Berry does not understand these provisions. I suspect that he would have had much more benefit from sitting down and talking with someone from the department. I would have been happy to have briefed him, had he sought the opportunity, on what these clauses are all about.
MR BERRY (5.22): The first thing I want to say is that this matter was taken up with Mr Humphries' staff. I do not think that we have to go begging to Mr Humphries to get a response to amendments. The fact of the matter is that this is a discriminatory piece of legislation. It discriminates against health professionals. Mr Humphries used an incorrect analogy, and a most inappropriate one, when he talked about a representative on the board from an association. He said that, if the nurses federation or some other union appointed somebody to the board and they resigned from their profession, then I would be keen, if I were Minister, to remove them. The fact of the matter is that, if they were nominated by the union or association for appointment and were appointed accordingly, I would be
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