Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

To clarify that, we are aware that the chair of AHEC must be on the council. That is a given, and quite rightly too, but I am still not clear whether out of that at least six but not more than 11 members there can therefore be two members and perhaps even six with expertise in ethics. Are we talking here about effectively doubling the number of members who have ethics expertise, and may have only ethics expertise, as opposed to the number that have been dropped off? You say it is not required. Does it also follow that those with expertise in the other categories—that is, health care training, professional medical standards, medical profession and postgraduate medical training, nursing profession, public health research and medical research issues, and public health—are also not required? Could we have a situation where there are two members under the existing council in that category specifying at least six but not more then 11 who would have expertise just in ethics? Who would they displace if that were the case?