Page 2725 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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Thursday, 26 August 1993
________________________
MADAM SPEAKER (Ms McRae) took the chair at 10.30 am and read the prayer.
DENTISTS REGISTRATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (10.31): Madam Speaker, I present the Dentists Registration (Amendment) Bill 1993.
Title read by Clerk.
MR BERRY: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
The Dentists Registration Act 1931 exists to provide registration of and discipline methods for dentists within the ACT. It is the legal instrument of the Dental Board of the ACT, which is a statutory body with executive powers. Also embodied in the Act is the legal authority for dental therapists, assistants and hygienists to practise under the direction and control of a registered dentist.
When the Health (Consequential Provisions) Act 1993 was drafted, all reference to dental therapists had been removed due to subsection 34(1B) of the Dentists Registration Act being inadvertently repealed, effective on 1 March 1993. The impact of this action was a technical oversight. It is proposed to amend the Dentists Registration Act 1931 to reinstate subsection 34(1B), with retrospective effect from 1 March 1993, the commencement of the Health (Consequential Provisions) Act 1993.
This retrospective amendment will not impose any burden on dental therapists and will in fact have the opposite effect of restoring a benefit, that is, the right to practise, which has inadvertently been taken away. It will also protect dental therapists from the unlikely event of prosecution for acts done during the period from 1 March 1993 until the enactment of the amendment.
The amendment involves no change in policy and is of a purely technical nature to restore the status quo. There are no resource implications in relation to this amendment. I present the explanatory memorandum to the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Carnell) adjourned.
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