Page 5288 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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way, then my major concern is covered, although I still feel that there are other benefits from including personal liability for negligence.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before you sit down, Mr Stevenson, I take it that you formally move your amendment? Would you just formally do so?
MR STEVENSON: I move:
Page 19, subclause 57(1), line 3, after "to be done in good faith", insert "and without negligence".
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 58 and 59, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.
Clause 60
MR BERRY (10.00): This is a controversial amendment. I do not expect the Government to support it, because it has indicated that it is concerned about keeping secrets within our hospital system and protecting the cover-up of problems. Secrecy clauses, generally, have no place in a modern society. If you listen to me as I go on, then you will come to an understanding of what I am talking about. I think that I can say this in the light of recent examples and reports of the heavy-handed bullying of staff at media outlets by senior health bureaucrats. I have to say that I am outraged that the Minister and the Attorney-General have not taken a more modern approach to the secrecy provisions in this legislation, and that is why the amendment is being moved by the Australian Labor Party.
Our health system has to be opened up, and it has to bring all of the issues which are of concern out into the open. There has to be trust in our health system. There will not be trust while ever there are secrets. The Government will stand condemned because of its acquiescence to the provision of a professional guardian for professional standards. It really ought to have some community involvement in it. The Government will stand condemned if it does not do something about these secrecy provisions. For example, would this Government gaol a nurse or fine a nurse $5,000 for alerting the public to an incident where some person had been killed in the hospital system?
Mr Humphries: That is what the protection of the quality assurance provisions is all about.
MR BERRY: You have unloaded them too. You have unloaded the quality assurance provisions. The fact of the matter is that what we are setting out to do is to ensure that people are able to speak out about the awful things that might happen in our system. That is not to say that every
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