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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2101 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

interests of protection of the public to allow such persons to continue to seek registration as psychologists under section 57 and to practise in that capacity without holding the qualifications and experience required by the substantive provisions of the Act - I think everyone would agree with that - upon receipt of legal advice by the board that the transition provisions are still operable, even though they were not meant to be.

I think everyone accepts that the provisions were not meant to exist. The way we put the legislation together, the way we passed the legislation, transition provisions were supposed to exist for a set period of time to allow people who were currently practising as psychologists, and had been for years, to get over the line and to be registered. Then, supposedly, the sunset clause would come in and all would be well. What has happened is that the sunset clause we thought we had passed appears to not be operable and section 57, the transitional provisions, is still operable, according to legal opinion.

The board has registered approximately eight persons as psychologists under section 57 of the Act. There are currently six applications - so Mr Berry is right - for registration under section 57 that have been received by the board and are in process. There are currently no appeals in progress under section 58 of the Act against board decisions under 57 of the Act. It is important to understand exactly what these six applications look like. The proposed new section 58 of the Act has no impact on persons who are already registered under section 57. So the registration of those who have already got through cannot be revoked.

Section 58 does provide, though, for termination of section 57 applications currently before the board and the AAT, as I have said. These applications currently before the board under section 57 are from persons employed as school counsellors. This is the important bit here. School counsellors do not require registration as psychologists to practise as school counsellors. So they can continue to operate as school counsellors, but they do not have the required qualifications to be registered as psychologists. I would have to say nor should they, Mr Speaker, unless they have the qualifications involved. They should not be entitled to call themselves a psychologist. So these persons can continue to work as school counsellors but should not be able to register as psychologists under the whole intent of this Act. Unfortunately, what has happened with the extension of section 57 is that these persons, these school counsellors, have appealed or have requested to become psychologists. These are the people who are currently the six applicants for registration under section 57.

I would agree with members of the Assembly that normally an application that was in would not be ruled out of order by legislation in this place, but in this case I think it is essential that it happens because this is not the intent of the legislation that we passed. We passed legislation to ensure that people who are registered as psychologists have the appropriate qualifications for that registration. I think we would all agree that school counsellors who do not have other qualifications should not be able to register as psychologists. Now, put simply, that is what this is about. I have trouble believing that anybody in this place would not support that approach.

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