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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2552 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The tender will seek to have premiums fixed for 3 years, unless a doctor has a poor claims experience, when premiums could be adjusted in that period. Part of the premium will be used to fund the Private Specialist Private Practice arrangements with a cover provider being sought by tender. The remaining premium will contribute to the costs of the ACT Public Practice Scheme.

So I am pleased, I think, that we are going to include midwives in such an arrangement. Why can we not include midwives in such an arrangement? Surely we can. The article is quite detailed. The government has obviously done a lot of work on this, so it will not be hard to attach midwives to the scheme. The article goes on:

The scheme will provide:

claims incurred cover for all ACT public patient work carried out by Visiting Medical Officers (VMOs);

unlimited cover for this public work;

an insurance based product-the cover will be contractual, not discretionary; and

claims management ...

The article gives quite long details of the specialist private practice arrangement. I will not go into all the details of the specialist private practice arrangement.

Mr Moore: Jon, what date is that Canberra Doctor?

MR STANHOPE: February 2001. They are the arrangements, as we understand them, in relation to what this government, this minister and the department of health have worked out for doctors. I guess what Ms Tucker's motion goes to is: will the government apply the same vigour, the same energy and the same level of commitment of government resources to ensure that women in Canberra have access to independent midwives with a capacity to deliver babies at home? That is what we need to ensure. That is what the motion is aimed at achieving.

I would hope that the government can negotiate with the midwives to facilitate some such arrangement, because it is important that the prospect for the continuity of care and the continuity of carer that independent midwives provide for expectant mothers be safeguarded and protected. That is what Ms Tucker is seeking to achieve here. (Extension of time granted.)

Much could be said about why it is vitally important that we ensure within Canberra that the option of home births is retained and why it is that significant numbers of women choose to have babies at home, with all of the health benefits that accrue from the continuity of care and carer provided through home birthing opportunities and independent midwives.

We could also have a debate about the level of resourcing of the birthing centre in the ACT. We could have a debate about whether or not independent midwives, as they do in other states, should have access to public hospitals in the eventuality that one of their clients chooses at the last moment, either as a result of a developing aspect of the pregnancy, to have their baby in a hospital rather than at home, perhaps through circumstances they cannot control but as a result of a decision at the end. We here in the

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