Page 3893 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 29 October 2013
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Perhaps there is a way forward. We might go to the detail stage and, because I am comfortable with the rest of the bill, essentially then have a division on the element that I have concerns with, part 1.2. We could deal with that separately. But if that is not going to be supported, perhaps we will just vote against the whole thing. We will see how others are responding.
What I would say is that perhaps—given that there is no rush for anything in this legislation that we were told was non-controversial and we were told was minor but that appears not to be the case—we could adjourn so that this matter could be resolved and perhaps the controversial elements withdrawn and dealt with separately. That would be my recommendation, so that we can actually get on with doing what a SLAB is meant to do—essentially to amend the statute book with non-controversial and only minor adjustments and policy, and resolve the issue of consultation with all the stakeholder groups locally.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Health and Minister for Higher Education) (10.50): I rise specifically to address the concerns that Mr Hanson has. The amendment clauses in this SLAB are considered minor policy; I gave approval for them to be included in the SLAB as I do for all SLABs of various types.
This amendment clause responds to the national maternity services plan, which was endorsed by Australian health ministers in November 2010 for the five-year period from 2010 to 2015. The plan’s aim is to preserve and expand the availability of model maternity care services to women and their significant others. The maternity services plan committed jurisdictions to develop consistent approaches to the provision of clinical privileges within public maternity services to enable admitting and practice rights for eligible midwives and medical practitioners. All jurisdictions committed to use their best endeavours to facilitate the clinical privileges, admitting and practice rights of eligible midwives.
This amendment enables us, should we choose, to establish processes for credentialing of midwives. It does not require us to establish those processes or credential individual midwives, and any move to do so would need to be done by ensuring that all clinical safety and governance matters are appropriately addressed and are supported by the obstetricians working within our services. It is anticipated that implementation of this credentialing will be considered in the first instance at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children in full consultation with all relevant staff.
In relation to the national maternity services plan, there was extensive consultation with RANZCOG, so I do not know the situation in relation to the advice that Mr Hanson just provided but there was extensive consultation with the office of the Commonwealth Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer and with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to develop and implement the national maternity services plan.
Once this plan was agreed by all health ministers of all jurisdictions after the consultations that had led into the development of the maternity services plan, it was
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