Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

The Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2006 is supported by the Labor Party. It is a procedural bill that encourages electronic transmission of various manufacturing licences for medicines, blood and tissues. I want to take the opportunity to alert the government to the fact that we are aware that these amendments were in train during the time that the ANAO report was being conducted, and the ANAO report made a series of recommendations, including a recommendation that the TGA operate in an e-business type environment.

However, subsequent to the ANAO report being received and the government agreeing with all of those recommendations, which is a fairly standard response to ANAO reports, the government commissioned Deloittes to review the implementation process of the various recommendations. I understand that the report from Deloittes, which was issued in June 2005, found that, although the TGA had planned activities to address all of the audit recommendations, none had been fully implemented at that time. I think it might be opportune for the government to revisit that report and advise the Senate, maybe through the process that we are going through today or at another time, of the progress of the TGA in implementing the recommendations made by the ANAO and also on whether or not those have been implemented in accordance with the recommendations from Deloittes. Labor will be supporting this bill.