Page 4459 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
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the right to privacy and the right to safety and dignity for vulnerable people. I am comfortable that situations such as that previously detailed where a provider can exercise whole-of-life control over an individual justifies any potential limitation on the human right to privacy. A person with a disability has the option of opting out of official visitor contact.
I commend the Disability Services Amendment Bill to the Assembly. The bill will support official visitors to safeguard the rights and dignity of vulnerable people in the ACT community.
Debate (on motion by Ms Lee) adjourned to the next sitting.
Statute Law Amendment Bill 2018
Debate resumed from 20 August 2018, on motion by Mr Ramsay:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (12.01): The Canberra Liberals will be supporting this bill. Like all statute amendment bills, its object is to update the ACT statute book as an entire body of law by amending acts and regulations but doing so for revision and update purposes only. Under guidelines for the technical amendments program, the central criteria for the inclusion of amendments in these types of bills are that the amendments are minor or technical and non-controversial. In my view, this bill follows those guidelines. It is split into schedule 1 “minor amendments”, schedule 3 “technical amendments” and schedule 4 “repeal of redundant or obsolete legislation”. The bill actually does contain a schedule 2, usually used for structural amendments, but this legislation does not actually have any clauses. It is included in the bill to preserve the usual numbering schedule of schedule 3.
I will turn first to schedule 1, the minor amendments. In this bill one of the minor amendments is updating applied over several acts, for example the Health Act 1993, the Mental Health Act 2015, the Public Health Act 1997 and the Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Act 1977. They are all amended to change the various definitions relating to “authorised nurse practitioner” and “nurse practitioner” positions. It replaces all of those with the term “nurse practitioner”. Similarly in the Ombudsman Act it makes several changes from “officer” to “information holder”.
Other amendments are in response to changes made by the introduction of other legislation. For example, the Ombudsman Act 1989 is amended in response to the passage of the reportable conduct scheme specifically to allow the ombudsman to use the services of a public servant or territory facilities, to engage consultants and to delegate functions to a member of the Ombudsman’s staff. The Freedom of Information Act 2016 is also updated as a consequence of the scheme. Other amendments are standalone but also minor. In the Public Sector Management Act 1994, section 152 gives statutory office holders the power to delegate a function to a staff member, an officer or employee or the Head of Service. The act clarifies the definition and use of “management positions”.
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