Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in strong support of the Health Practitioner Regulation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010, as it supports the implementation of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the Health Professions. In fact, it does more than support it; it provides the foundation for its establishment. This is a first. In the words of our Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, this bill is a landmark reform for our health system. It is. I have to thank her for the skill and competency that she brought to negotiating the final arrangements.

The bill introduces a national system for the registration and accreditation of about 10 health professions. It brings about consistency across borders in Australia and uniform standards to our health workforce. People always talk about having cooperation across the borders at the state and territory level. It sounds easy and sounds like it can be delivered in a straightforward way, but we know from experience and practice that it is not so easy to do and it does take not only skill and competency but political will to make it happen. A lot of things get put into the too-hard basket when we are looking at national standards, national schemes and national accreditation, which I will cover more later.

When the bill was introduced into this place on 24 February the minister said that Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria had already passed bills which put in place the national system. She further said that the ACT and the Northern Territory had introduced bills and that South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia were well advanced in their planning. I hope the minister is able to give us a status update in her summation. Again it is well done that all states and territories are on board to make sure we have this national scheme.

The previous government’s Minister for Health and Ageing, who is now the Leader of the Opposition, identified this as a goal. He knew it was a problem to be fixed and then did nothing. He sat on it. That is right, he did nothing. Now he runs around proclaiming to be a man of real action. What nonsense. Any time he had to take action of any kind he shied away, except of course action that disadvantaged workers such as introducing Work Choices.

The Leader of the Opposition was not able, or not willing, to introduce these reforms. It requires a lot of policy energy, and not just policy energy directed at opposing and saying no, because it was not their idea, and running fear and smear campaigns, which is part and parcel of their modus operandi. You have to have the policy nous and the political will to start to address the challenges that face our health system. And I have to say that the then health minister, now Leader of the Opposition, never had the ticker to do it. Sixty per cent of Australians suffered from a shortage of doctors and that was put into the too-hard basket too. Worse than that, the previous health minister, now Leader of the Opposition, actually froze the number of GP training places.

This bill is about health workforce reform. It was an area that had been neglected. In March 2008 the health minister and the states and territories signed an intergovernmental agreement to progress this national scheme. That was the Council of Australian Governments working for us. A lot of people wonder about the Council of Australian Governments, or COAG, as it is called. They hear discussion about it, they hear about it in the media and they hear members of parliament talking about it, but it can seem a bit remote to them. But through the political will of governments and goodwill on all sides COAG actually works for us, and this is an example of it working for us.

In short, this national scheme will do a number of key things. It will increase standards and, particularly with health, we can never have enough of those, and it is better that they be national standards. When we have standards that operate in a certain way because of a border, differences in each state can be really difficult. Having a national standard means that we can also raise the standards and bring them to a better benchmark and a better mean and we can always bring them up to the best standard that exists across the country. Again, I know that can be hard to do, but that is how it can work. It could also reduce red tape, and that actually has an impact on health service delivery and safety.

There is a fourth benefit. It also improves the mobility of the health workforce. Anything that can improve the mobility and the ability of the workforce is a good thing, and certainly for rural health service delivery. In practice, it means that health professionals will not have to re-register every time they step across a state or territory border. That saves time, money and inconvenience, and it means that some practitioners will go to other places to work.

From my personal experience as a registered solicitor trying to register in another state, I know that it can be very complicated. I once had a situation where by the time I got the papers the time had expired for me to physically lodge them in Brisbane. I think I tried about four or five times and gave up—that one just seemed too hard. Also, the requirement to present different sets of information or to double up on it is very frustrating. I know that whole area is changing too for the legal profession.

The mobility factor is a boon for locum support for rural doctors. As doctors become freer to work across state boundaries, while we will not necessarily have all the doctors rushing to rural areas, it will make it easier and the incentive is there for that to happen. This bill is directed towards some important machinery matters that need to be addressed to give effect to the ability of medical practitioners to retain the same Medicare billing eligibility, and that will be operational from 1 July 2010. As for the amendments, they are said to be consequential and transitional, but really they are fundamental to the Health Insurance Act to give effect to this provision for medical practitioners. The Commonwealth does not need to apply the act to national law, but it is for that provision that I just talked about.

The national registration and accreditation scheme provides for a nationally consistent means of identifying both specialists and GPs and a mandatory requirement for continuing professional development. That is an important inclusion. I have that requirement in the legal profession; I have to get my 10 points each year to keep my practising certificate. There are some exceptions, of course, for doing other things—teaching et cetera—but it is important in any profession to have that ongoing mandatory requirement. It means that at least every year practitioners in whatever field they are in have to commit to certain things. It is good also if schemes can operate so that not only do you have to commit to mandatory continuing professional development but that it has some coherence built around it about what information, knowledge and skills are required each year in the area. I know that does not operate in the legal profession, but it would be good. And because I also have a teaching background, I have some feel for what should be included in continuing professional development and education.

The National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the Health Professions modernises other regulation of health professionals by creating this one regulatory environment. It is important because any profession wants to modernise but the reality with health is that it has to serve the needs of the health profession but equally serve our needs—the consumers, the patients. This scheme addresses both. It will end the duplication of effort, it will end multiple standards and it will end the red tape caused by separate systems in each state and territory. In the words of the minister: it will be a workable registration scheme for Australian patients and practitioners that also contributes to improving the safety of our health system for all Australians.

In closing, I can say that the amendments in this bill take on board the stakeholders’ concerns raised during the Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill and that, because of that inquiry into the bill, there was more time, more input and more consideration of it. That is always a good process. I look forward to having a workable, practical, national registration system that will deliver for patients and health professionals alike. I commend the bill to the House.

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