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

Thank you to the minister for that advice. I think it is useful to have it on the record.

Question negatived.

I move amendment (1) on sheet 4915:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 69, page 25 (line 13), omit “after consulting appropriately”, substitute “subject to subsection (2A)”.

This amendment goes to the question of consulting appropriately. The bill removes the need for the minister to consult with state and territory health ministers in the appointment of the chair of AHEC. Can the minister advise what ‘consulting appropriately’ might mean—which persons would fit within the category of being appropriate for consultation—and what he sees as the likely outcome of this failure to need to consult with state ministers?

As I said in my speech on the second reading, I would have thought that since this is a national health and medical research council we would want the state ministers for health to be both engaged in and consulted on these appointments. I can understand that it is a bit more time consuming to get the agreement of state health ministers, but perhaps the minister can tell us when this has been such a terrible problem in the past and how this is going to overcome it. There are a lot of questions there, Minister, I am sorry. But if you could respond to those that would be useful.