Page 3891 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 29 October 2013
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do: they make minor amendments, essentially, to the machinery of government. The opposition supports those elements of this bill. But as you are aware, Madam Speaker, statute law amendment bills are not meant to contain matters that are controversial or have any significant statements of policy and so on. Unfortunately, not for the first time in this place, we find that we have a statute law amendment bill that contains an element—this is in schedule 1, part 1.2, which amends the Health Act 1993 and matters concerning the credentialing of midwives—which reflects a reasonably significant change in policy here in the ACT and is not uncontroversial. I will go through that shortly.
For that reason, the Liberal Party will not be able to support this legislation. There are two ways forward: either adjourn debate until such time as adequate consultation has occurred or bring it back without the elements which are of concern to the opposition so that the other matters can be brought forward. There is nothing that I see in this piece of legislation and there is nothing that I have been advised of in the briefing I had last night that would indicate that this is in any way a piece of legislation that needs to be rushed through.
I turn now to the particular element about which I have concern. The Health Act 1993 already provides for the credentialing of some health professionals other than midwives and specifies several classes of facilities as health facilities. However, in practice these amendments propose that privately practising midwives be credentialed for a certain scope of professional practice at hospital. The purpose of credentialing is to enable an eligible midwife to admit patients under their own name into an ACT health facility and care for them there as per the parameters of practice delineated by the scope of practice committee for that midwife.
This is an issue that we in the opposition have looked at, and we have struggled to see whether this is a non-controversial element or whether there is something more substantive here. We have sought some answers from the government. There was a series of toing and froing between my office and Mr Corbell’s office. We forwarded a bunch of questions; we received answers on Thursday afternoon, and I have since forwarded those elements to stakeholders.
I received a brief from the government yesterday evening, and I have received a response from a number of stakeholders. Neither of those activities gives me any sense of comfort that this is without controversy. At the briefing last night, and I thank the minister’s officials for that, the official from the Health Directorate did not give me the comfort that this had had sufficient consultation. In fact, when I asked about consultation, I was advised that the consultation would essentially occur after the passage of the legislation. That really is the wrong way around. I was advised that there had been discussions at the federal level, but there was an admission that, although there had been consultation with the College of Midwives, there had been no consultation locally with the college of obstetricians. I find it unusual that that would be the case. Clearly, sufficient consultation has not occurred, and what has occurred has essentially been in house.
I now want to read the response I got when I sent this legislation to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and to the
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