Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We in the Labor Party support e-health and the concept of the My Health Record. If these policies were implemented by a competent government, they would be hugely beneficial to Australians. Alas, this government has taken the project of the e-health delivery that Labor began when we were last in government, and it has bungled it every step of the way. The last Labor government's e-health system was opt in. We thought this was the right approach. But this government doesn't seem to care about informed consent. It is a mystery why they've chosen an opt-out system. There's no proper explanation why, no attempt to educate the public and no regard for the privacy of Australians. The previous Turnbull government and now this government continue to botch the rollout of the opt-out period, undermining public trust in these reforms.

Australians have every right to be concerned about the security of their personal information with the My Health Record. This amendment is patching up legislation that, like other health policies of this government, is broken to the core. The My Health Records Amendment (Strengthening Privacy) Bill 2018 rightly responds to the public anger over My Health Record. Labor welcomes the changes in the bill. We welcome requiring law enforcement and other government agencies to get a court order to access records. We welcome permanently deleting the health information of people who opt out of My Health Record.

However, we do not think these changes go far enough. They will do little to allay the community fears about privacy and security. This bill does nothing to protect some of the most vulnerable Australians in our communities. Take, for example, women fleeing violent partners or children who need privacy from non-custodial parents. The Law Council of Australia highlighted these concerns this week. Parents who are subjected to apprehended domestic violence orders may still access their children's health records even if they're only allowed supervised contact with those children. This, of course, opens the door to accessing much more information, perhaps such as the residential address of the child and the other parent. This is a serious issue and places vulnerable children and their parents at greater risk from perpetrators of violence, and this can't be allowed to happen. Despite these concerns, the government is still proceeding with the opt-out system. This really isn't good enough. This is a government that does not care about the most vulnerable people in our community. The government must suspend the opt-out period until these issues are addressed to protect the privacy of vulnerable Australians. The government must also ensure they are not enabling family violence through careless loopholes in these patch-up amendments.

This is a government that doesn't care about the healthcare needs of Australians. The residents of my electorate of Werriwa have suffered enough thanks to the government's ideological war on Medicare and public health care. They've cut Medicare and hospitals year on year since the horror budget of 2014. The government has continued through the last four years with this assault, with $2.8 billion to be cut from hospitals between the next election and 2025.

I'm appalled on behalf of residents in my electorate of Werriwa. Not only are my constituents worse off under this government's healthcare cuts but now they cannot count on their personal healthcare information being kept secure. This government hasn't been capable of delivering quality IT reforms and does not care about delivering quality public health reforms. When we combine the two together, My Health Record could be a complete disaster waiting to happen.

A Labor government will deliver e-health reforms but put the privacy and security of Australians first. We will support this bill in the House because something is better than nothing when it comes to privacy, but we want to refer this bill to a legislative inquiry in the Senate. This inquiry will rightly test whether the bill adequately responds to privacy and security concerns. The Senate has rightly agreed to our proposal for an inquiry into the My Health Record. This inquiry will go beyond the bill. It will look at the government's decision to shift to an opt-out system, the way it communicates this fundamental change and the default settings within the record.

This government's failings on My Health Record should come as little surprise to all of us in the House. This is a government with an appalling track record in delivering efficient, secure IT services. They've botched the rollout of the NBN, they've botched the rollout of the NDIS, we had the census issues, and now we seem to have botched the My Health Record all the way through. It is very important that we get this right to deliver the important reforms that My Health Record could deliver.

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