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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3181 ..

fashion. For those reasons the Democrats agree that it is timely that we update the regulation of health professionals in the territory.

The Health Professionals Bill, which has been the subject of lengthy industry consultation, has the ambitious task of placing 12 different acts covering the regulation of health professionals into one omnibus bill. I am pleased that the government is being proactive in updating legislation that, in some instances, is over 70 years old. There is a dramatic shift in the way these professions will be regulated with the bulk of specifications being shifted to regulations and schedules rather than individual acts. This leaves the law to deal mainly with the formation and operation of professional boards that administer the regulation of standards for each individual health profession.

Despite its length the bill before us is rather simplistic. But it does improve transparency and accountability as well as increase community representation and public consultation. These are principles to which the ACT Democrats are firmly committed. Whilst I am generally supportive of the move to have the bulk of legislation regulated as it allows for a more adaptive regulatory scheme and enables new health boards to update professionals in a more speedy fashion, it raises the prospect that the Assembly will lose some of its oversight powers. Amendments have been circulated to address those fears. I am supportive of those amendments, which we will deal with in the detail stage.

When I consulted with health professionals in relation to this legislation they told me about the lengths to which the government and the health department had gone to consult with stakeholders. However, concerns have been raised about the fact that the draft regulations have only just been made available and a number of stakeholders are yet to see them. Members in the Assembly have had these draft regulations for only 2½ days. Specifically, the Pharmacy Guild raised concerns about regulation of place versus regulation of person. Just this week the Nurses Federation raised questions about medical indemnity for nurses and the supervision of enrolled nurses by registered nurses.

Those issues will need to be worked through adequately when we develop individual schedules in this bill. Because of the way in which this bill was set up it was originally envisaged that questions such as these would not be answered for some time. If the amendments that we debate tonight are not successful they could bypass the Assembly altogether, which raises some serious transparency issues. Effectively, the Assembly could vote on legislation that it had not yet seen. Once those amendments have been moved, I hope the Assembly has an opportunity to scrutinise the regulations and schedules before they are enacted.

I understand that the government has agreed to my suggestion to stagger the commencement of each profession. Consequently, the repealing of each of the professions in the current act must be made more explicit so that we do not repeal one law before we are aware of what the new law is and whether or not that law has been accepted by the Assembly. The Health Professionals Legislation Amendment Bill, which is relatively uncontroversial, amends other pieces of legislation in line with the Health Professionals Bill, which is something that we support. I foreshadow that I will be moving one amendment in the detail stage that will seek to change the exception provisions from a notifiable instrument to a disallowable instrument.

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