Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Labor strongly supports the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Registry, but this register will hold some of people's most sensitive data, including the results of screening for cervical and bowel cancer, so we have to ensure that we get it right.

While I am on the subject of cervical cancer, I want to use this opportunity to send a message to Australian women about the important need for them to get regular Pap smears. I have a friend who is currently down in Melbourne at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre undergoing her second round of tests as a result of being diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer last year. She spent six months in Melbourne, in and out of Peter MacCallum, getting treated. She had a pretty good diagnosis at the end of it, but she is down in Melbourne again getting a reassessment of how things have progressed. It is a very aggressive form of cancer, and she had to go through a number of interventions.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum for looking after her so beautifully. She has nothing but high praise for the team at Peter MacCallum. They helped her through a very difficult time both physically and emotionally. She was down there, quite often on her own, in those clinics addressing the subject of her own potential mortality. The support team at Peter MacCallum who looked after not just her health concerns but also her emotional wellbeing concerns were fantastic. Again, I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum for doing such a wonderful job of looking after her. She is down in Melbourne at the moment getting the next round of tests—may the news be good. She is a very close friend of mine, and it came as a huge shock to all of us when she heard this news last year. She has been amazing in dealing with it, confronting it with the stoicism that she has come to be known for. I wish her all the best on the test results. My thoughts are with you, my dear friend.

Once more, I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum, who have helped her through this very challenging time—may it be an end to this challenging time—but who also help hundreds of thousands of Australians each year in providing health support and also emotional wellbeing support.

Creating a register for data of this level of sensitivity requires taking the time to consider options, to consult with the community and to review and refine the final product. Australians expect the best, and that is what they deserve. Labor supports the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Register so long as it meets the community's highest expectations of quality, safety and security, and that is a long away from what the government originally proposed.

When it comes to the National Cancer Screening Register, the Turnbull government's policy-making process has been an absolute shambles. On the eve of the election, the Turnbull government signed a $220 million contract to outsource the register to Telstra before parliament even saw the legislation. On the eve of the election, they signed a significantly large contract with a for-profit organisation before parliament even saw the legislation.

This is typical of the Turnbull government's commitment to oversight and accountability. Apparently the only people who need to see and review the government's legislation before contracts are signed are in the Turnbull cabinet. We, on this side of the House, see no virtue in bad policy done on the fly as is so typical of this government. We, on this side of the House, believe in getting policy right. When Labor and the crossbench referred the government's bills to a Senate inquiry, we did so to ensure the expectations and concerns of the community were met and addressed.

It is entirely reasonable for the community to expect that a national register of individuals' most sensitive data is well designed and well produced to ensure a well-functioning outcome. According to the Minister for Health and Aged Care, referring legislation to the Senate amounts to what she has termed an 'hysterical tirade'. These are her words. According to the minister for health, it is her government's view that a commitment to good policy is not reasonable; it is hysterical. What an embarrassment it must have been for the government's own Privacy and Information Commissioner to have made six separate recommendations on how to fix the legislation. While the government set about accusing its opponents in engaging in hysterical tirades, Labor began the process of getting right what the government has persistently got wrong: bad policy done on the fly.

A good government would not rely on the opposition to fix its mess, but this shambolic Turnbull government's mismanagement of the legislation for a national cancer screening register has left us with no choice but to get actively engaged in this. We do not think it is an hysterical tirade to question the wisdom of letting the register operator collect all Medicare claims information on people who are on the register. This is what the government's plan originally proposed. Under this plan, Telstra would be able to see all health services a person has received, including in sensitive areas, like mental health and sexual health. Telstra would be able to see all those health services on those very sensitive issues.

Australians deserve better than that. They deserve a better standard of protection than that, and they are not getting it from this government. That is why, last week, Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation. We have dragged the Turnbull government kicking and screaming to the table, and it appears they will move a series of amendments to accommodate our demands.

While the government accused us of some hysterical tirade, we set about getting the policy right. We set about fixing the mess left by the Turnbull government. The Turnbull government has turned around, admittedly—tail between its legs—and has said, 'Labor, maybe you do have a point. Maybe this legislation could do with a few changes.' They have agreed to a few of Labor's amendments but they have not agreed to all of them. They have put pride before policy and, as a result, their legislation is still full of holes. But the community expects that we will get this right, as I have said many times through the course of this speech. This is holding sensitive data about their health—about their mental health, about their sexual health, about their history.

So in addition to the Labor amendments that the government is accepting, we will move three amendments that they have refused to accept. Our amendments strengthen the protection of Australia's personal, private and sensitive information. Our amendments ensure that this data is collected appropriately, is reviewed appropriately and is protected appropriately. We think making good policy means that if you know there is a gap or a loophole you close it. But by refusing to accept Labor's amendment to close a number of glaring loopholes, the Turnbull government seems to think that good policy means saying 'no' to fully protecting Australians—because it was Labor's idea to do so. This is how churlish they are: 'It was Labor's idea, so let's just say no.'

We think committing to a policy that is full of loopholes, despite a number of cybersecurity concerns, is not a recipe for good policy. But it seems it is another example of this government and its leadership sticking with a bad policy even though they know it is bad. We will not do the same. That is why Labor will proceed with its amendment to limit the operation of the register to a non-for-profit organisation or a government agency.

The Senate inquiry heard that you cannot find a country—anywhere in the world—where a for-profit corporation is responsible for the operation of a cancer screening register. This is not the sort of innovation Australia needs. The register should not be signed over to an untested, unproven operator that exists to deliver a profit. Yet that is what Telstra is and that is what the government is trying to do. It is offering Telstra access to some health information that we have never offered access to before—your Medicare number, your Medicare claims information, your screening results. This is the information being offered, for Telstra to have access to.

The government is signing off on giving Telstra access to data that reveals whether a person has cancer, whether a woman has had a hysterectomy, whether a person who identifies as a man is biologically female. And all of this information will be signed over to Telstra to look after. The Turnbull government may think that is not a problem. It may accuse us of engaging in hysterics, of throwing tantrums, of generating outlandish conspiracy theories, but I wonder if they also accuse the Australian Medical Association of the same? I wonder if the Turnbull government's minister for health is about to press 'send' on a media release accusing the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and other experts, of another hysterical tirade? These organisations share Labor's concern about outsourcing the register to a for-profit organisation. They are concerned, as Labor is concerned, that handing this data to a private for-profit corporation with a history of privacy breaches represents a fundamental failure to protect Australians' most sensitive and personal health information.

We want the best protection and we want the best policy. That is why Labor will move an amendment to ensure that individuals are notified whenever their most sensitive health data is breached. The Turnbull government's legislation means that if and when there are data breaches, Telstra's only responsibility is to notify the Department of Health. It appears that the government is now willing to accept Labor's amendment that the privacy commissioner be made aware of any breaches. That is a significant improvement, and it is to be welcomed. But it does not fix the fundamental problem that lies at the heart of the amendment I am concerned about here today. Unless the privacy commissioner's own personal, private health data has been compromised, in some way, by a breach, the amendment will not do enough of what it should do.

What the community expects and deserves is to be told if their most private health information is accessed inappropriately, and we have serious concerns that this expectation is not being met by the government's proposed legislation. The government says it is up to the privacy commissioner to tell individuals, if they choose to do so. This is not mandating notification. This is treating disclosure as an optional extra. It is not making it a requirement. It is, basically, at the discretion of the privacy commissioner. It treats notifying an individual that their sensitive data has been breached as an after-thought, as not a fundamental responsibility. I am sure—I know—that most Australians will be significantly concerned about that.

It was Labor that first introduced mandatory data-breach notification legislation in 2013 and it was Labor that reintroduced the legislation in 2014. It was Labor that qualified its support for legislation, in 2015, on the government committing for bringing mandatory data-breach legislation to a vote by the end of the year. We do not have it, because the government did not do it. The government says it agrees but it drags its feet on mandatory disclosure. This is a chance for the Turnbull government to match word with deed and show it believes in mandating data-breach notifications. This is an opportunity for the government to show that it is listening to the community, that it is listening to the AMA, that it is listening to the general practitioners, that it is listening to the community's expectations that their sensitive data about their health—

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