Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Royal Flying Doctor Service) Bill 2010, but I do so at the conclusion of the condolence motion for Sapper Jacob Moerland and Sapper Darren Smith, and I too would like to add my condolences to the words of the previous speakers and acknowledge that they have paid the ultimate price for serving their country. All of us in the Australian parliament salute their service and send our condolences to their families.

I will move to the bill. The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia is one of the largest and most comprehensive aeromedical services in the world. The service delivers extensive primary health care and 24-hour emergency service throughout all of Australia. Notably, today the Royal Flying Doctor Service has a fleet of 53 aircraft operating from 21 bases across the country, flying the equivalent of 25 round trips to the moon in any given year. It provides medical assistance to over 270,000 Australians every year. That is one person every two minutes.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service has come a long way since its first flight in 1928. That was the year in which the Royal Flying Doctor Service was born. The service began as a dream of the Reverend John Flynn, a minister with the Presbyterian Church. He witnessed the daily struggle of pioneers living in remote areas where just two doctors provided the only medical care for an area of almost two million square kilometres. Flynn’s vision was to provide a mantle of safety for these people. On 15 May 1928, his dream became a reality with the opening of the Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service, which was later renamed the Royal Flying Doctor Service, in Cloncurry, in Queensland.

Over the next few years, the Royal Flying Doctor Service began to expand across the country. By the 1950s, the Royal Flying Doctor Service was acknowledged by former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies as ‘perhaps the single greatest contribution to the effective settlement of the far distant country that we have witnessed in our time’. The RFDS and the contribution of the Reverend John Flynn are commemorated on the Australian $20 note, something I am sure all members would be familiar with.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service has become a very proud symbol of the Australian spirit. You do not need to look far to find examples of individuals and communities taking pride in their involvement with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Only last month, the Far North Queensland town of Mareeba was announced as the new home of the Queen Air plane, a long-retired member of the RFDS fleet. The Mareeba community have welcomed the news and have expressed how proud they are to be part of the history of an organisation that so many times has meant the difference between life and death for the people of regional and remote Queensland.

This bill deals specifically with the medical chest service. A good example of how this works in practice is detailed on the RFDS website, as follows:

A worker on a cattle station or exploration camp has an eye infection. It isn’t serious enough for an evacuation flight but it needs treatment. The station is 200 km from the nearest doctor or nursing post so a long road trip would be required to have it seen to.

If there is a medical chest at their location, the worker can call the RFDS on our medical advice line and ask for medical assistance. The call would then be transferred to an RFDS doctor, who will speak to the patient and diagnose the condition over the phone. The doctor will then prescribe a drug from the chest, for example, number “134” antibiotic eye drops, and give the patient instructions on what to do.

At the end of the phone consultation, the doctor will also provide the patient with a consult number which is needed to re-order the drug once it has been used.

This scenario is also applicable to emergency situations. In the event of something serious like an amputation, crush injury or severe burn, medical chest custodians have access to RFDS doctors who will assess the situation via phone, prescribe appropriate pain relief and/or other medication, and arrange for an aeromedical evacuation if necessary.

According to the RFDS website, ‘medical chests contain a range of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical items’, and a large number of the latter are prescription-only items. The use of prescription-only items is subject to direct consultation with a Royal Flying Doctor Service doctor, and it is the doctor’s responsibility to correctly diagnose and prescribe. Only authorised, registered custodians are permitted to manage medical chests, and they are encouraged to have completed a senior first aid certificate. The Royal Flying Doctor Service emphasises that extreme care is taken to prevent illicit access to the medical chest, and in some circumstances the medical chest can be forfeited.

The RFDS receives Commonwealth funding to replenish chest items free of charge to remote locations where there is a duty of care to the public, such as outback schools, nursing posts, Indigenous communities and roadhouses. The RFDS is responsible for 3,000 medical chests throughout Australia. The chests were, up until the beginning of this year, replenished by delivery through Australia Post because many of the locations were too remote to be serviced by couriers or other transport networks. As a result of the cessation of deliveries, some medical chests have been left without essential supplies.

This bill therefore addresses what is an urgent amendment to ensure that emergency medicines are available to treat serious illness or injury in remote parts of Australia. It will amend section 85W of the Crimes Act 1914 to insert an exception to the offence of ‘causing narcotic substances to be carried by post’ for Australia Post and the Royal Flying Doctor Service and their officers, employees, agents and contractors.

The exception ensures that those organisations may arrange for the carriage of medicines by Australia Post for the purpose of enabling the Royal Flying Doctor Service to administer medicines through its medical chest program. The bill also replaces the reference in section 85W to a ‘controlled drug’ or a ‘controlled plant’, within the meaning of part 9.1 of the Criminal Code Act, with the reference to a ‘prescribed narcotic substance’ within the meaning of the Customs Act 1901. This exception addresses the repeal of that definition in 1990 and ensures that the offence has similar coverage to the domestic drug offences in the Criminal Code and to the original section 85W offence.

The purpose of the amendments in this bill is to insert a further exception to the offence in section 85W for bodies, persons or their employees, or others providing services for and on their behalf, prescribed in regulations who arrange for the supply of medicines to remote locations for the purposes of, and in accordance with, a program prescribed in regulations. The amendment will enable prescribed persons and bodies to arrange for the provision of vital medicines to remote Australian communities, utilising the delivery of services of Australia Post in certain circumstances.

As an aside, I think it is worth mentioning that next month a group of Australians will take part in the Royal Flying Doctor Service Outback Trek to help promote the hard work of the men and women of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The 12-day trip will leave from Melbourne and travel to Broome, across the Kimberley and on to Darwin. Those involved will see firsthand the good work that the Royal Flying Doctor Service does each day right across Australia. The opposition wish them very well on their tour and we hope that it is a success.

In conclusion, the medical chest provides what the Royal Flying Doctor Service describes as a ‘mini pharmacy’ to many remote locations throughout Australia. The medical chests undeniably provide an invaluable service and also provide enormous comfort to those living in remote locations. The coalition wholeheartedly support the good work of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and, therefore, we support the passage of this bill in order for it to continue its efforts.

I understand there were to be some other speakers in this debate, but they do not appear to be in the chamber. I will conclude by quoting the words of the Reverend John Flynn, whose proud work founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service:

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.

On that note, I commend the bill to the House.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Royal Flying Doctor Service) Bill 2010. The explanatory memorandum points out what this bill is about. It amends section 85W of the Crimes Act 1914 to insert an exception to the offence of causing narcotic substances to be carried by post for Australia Post and the Royal Flying Doctor Service Australia and their officers, employees, agents and contractors. The exception will allow those organisations to arrange for the carriage of medicines by Australia Post for the purposes of enabling the RFDSA to administer its medical chest program.

Section 85W provides for an offence of intentionally causing to carry by post an article that consists of, encloses or contains a prescribed narcotic substance within the meaning of the Customs Act 1901. The definition of ‘prescribed narcotic substance’ in the Customs Act was repealed by the Customs and Excise Legislation Amendment Act 1990. Due to an oversight, the effect of that repeal on the operation of section 85W was not taken into account and the reference in section 85W was not updated. The bill amends section 85W to give effect, as closely as possible, to the original policy intention behind the offence in section 85W, when it was introduced, by referring to ‘controlled drugs’ and ‘controlled plants’ within the meaning of part 9.1 of the Criminal Code Act 1995. Because ‘carried by post’ is defined in section 85E to mean ‘carried by or through Australia Post’, the offence in section 85W applies uniquely to persons, including employees of Australia Post, who arrange for the delivery of certain pharmaceuticals through Australia Post.

The RFDSA administers the RFDSA medical chest program, which provides a range of pharmaceutical items, including pain relief drugs such as pethidine and morphine, which enable emergency treatment to be given to people in rural and remote areas. The RFDSA and its agents supply and maintain approximately 2,600 medical chests across Australia, including those located in national parks, remote homesteads, pastoral stations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, outback schools, mines and mining exploration sites. The RFDSA regularly reviews the contents of the chests to ensure relevance and currency of pharmaceuticals.

Until recently, medical chests were distributed utilising Australia Post. However, section 85W makes it an offence for Australia Post or the RFDSA to arrange for the distribution of pharmaceuticals containing prescribed narcotic substances. Delivery services in relation to certain pharmaceuticals ceased following the discovery in early 2010 that this practice contravenes section 85W of the Crimes Act. The government understands that there are no viable alternatives to Australia Post for supplying medicines for the RFDS medicine chest program. Australia Post is the only delivery provider servicing many remote locations; consequently, a number of medical chests in remote areas are depleted or carrying out-of-date stock. That is why the amendment is required. It will address the risk of emergency medicines not being available to treat serious illness or injury in rural and remote areas of Australia. The explanatory memorandum sufficiently outlines the purpose of this amendment bill.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides a wonderful service. It currently operates in my electorate out of Bankstown Airport, although after the next election I will lose Bankstown Airport as it goes into the seat of Blaxland. I have visited the airport and the facilities that the Royal Flying Doctor Service uses. What people do not see at times is the cooperation on both sides of the House in relation to technical amendments and so on. Both sides come together and amendments are facilitated. Too often we are labelled with the vision of question time, which is worse than kids mucking up in the school playground, and both sides are guilty of that. This is an important amendment, because it is not a situation—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make Mr Pyne suffer! I had to wait till he came; now he can listen to me for at least a while. I understand this is something that the opposition support. It is not contentious. It is a technical amendment. Whoever is in government, these things are discovered and they need to be rectified. It is nothing for the general public to be worried about. I commend the bill to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleague the member for Banks for his sterling contribution to this discussion. I also thank the member for Stirling for his indication that the opposition supports the Crimes Amendment (Royal Flying Doctor Service) Bill 2010, and I thank all those people who contributed to the debate.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to see some joviality in the Main Committee, but the minister has the call.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bit of legislation is quite important. It was a discussion between my office, Minister Conroy’s office and Minister O’Connor’s office that led to this piece of legislation. I thank Minister O’Connor for putting it into the parliament.

The Medical Chest Program to which the bill referred initially enables Royal Flying Doctor Service medical practitioners to provide people in rural and remote communities with vital medication, including pain relief for those requiring emergency evacuation. The program has operated since the 1930s and provides great comfort to those living in the outback. The amendments in this bill will enable Australia Post to resume its services in delivering the vital medicines contained in these medical chests by ensuring that these services do not fall within the scope of the offence of ‘causing narcotic substances to be carried by post’. The bill also makes a necessary amendment to the offence itself. The amendment will provide that the offence applies to the ‘controlled drugs’ and ‘controlled plants’ listed in part 9.1 of the Criminal Code rather than to ‘prescribed narcotic substances, within the meaning of the Customs Act 1901’. This amendment will correct an oversight that meant that the offence provision continued to refer to a definition that was repealed in 1990. It is designed to give effect, as closely as possible, to the original policy intention behind the offence in section 85W.

I will move amendments to the bill which I will outline more comprehensively during the consideration in detail stage. These amendments will insert a further exception to the offence in section 85W for conduct engaged in by a prescribed person or body for the purposes of the prescribed program for the supply of medicines to remote communities. The amendments are necessary as other organisations were identified after the introduction of the bill—to wit, the Northern Territory government—that may also require an exception to the offence. The measures in the current bill and as amended will remove impediments to the lawful supply of vital medications to rural and remote Australia. I thank members once again and commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.