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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3186 ..

standards and suitability of their peers. The public also needs to continue to be able to identify persons who are suitably skilled to address their health needs. For this reason, people who falsely use the title of a regulated health professional or provide a service while not being registered will remain in breach of the legislation.

In updating the legislation, we have had two issues in mind: the revised legislation should offer enhanced public protection and involve appropriate checks and balances on the practice of self-regulation. We have endeavoured to improve public protection by introducing revised processes and structures. We have also introduced a raft of checks and balances that include improved legislative accountability, greater transparency through community representation, instructions relating to the administration of the act from a natural justice perspective, clarified rights of appeal, and improved interaction with the Community and Health Services Complaints Commissioner; and we have established a separately convened health professions tribunal to assess serious misconduct matters.

Under regulations drawn up under this act, the ACT will continue to require the registration of all the health professionals that currently work in regulated health professions. Under the act, a regulated health profession is prescribed when the required regulation is made. This regulation will set out a number of profession-specific requirements, including the structure of the relevant health board, the suitability requirements for entry into and continued performance within, and any specific profession-based standards of practice.

In response to members of the Assembly and, as Mrs Cross mentioned, to allay concerns from some quarters, I am specifically making the following statement: in amendments that will be proposed later in the debate, we have agreed that, prior to a profession-specific regulation being made, there will be consultation with stakeholders who are generally accepted to represent the health profession.

It is the government’s intention also that, where there is a profession-specific requirement under an existing act, this requirement will be included in the revised professional regulation or as an amended provision to the principal act. Matters, for example, that have recently been considered by the Assembly in relation to pharmacy businesses will be included in the act or appropriate regulation.

We will be addressing the profession-specific regulations and the transition of existing professions during the 12-month transitional period. Members of the Assembly will have the opportunity to review the profession-specific regulations as disallowable instruments. As a new statutory feature, the proposed legislation also provides guidance to governments on issues they must consider when they are assessing new applications from currently unregulated professions to become registered in the ACT.

The legislation provides for the establishment of health profession boards, with their members continuing to be appointed and/or elected, as is currently the case. Each board is now, however, to have a minimum of one community representative. There is some flexibility for the construction of health profession boards and it would be possible under this legislation for a number of health professions to be represented by the one board or for boards to delegate some of their functions to other persons or bodies.

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