Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Minister. A lot of what you read out there in terms of addressing the gap is covered in the first part of schedule 9, and didn't address why you need to have the immunity from prosecution. It's the Quality of Care Principles and the hierarchy of decision-making—yes, that sets out covering the gap that's not currently covered in state and territory laws. But, once again, that's not giving me a rationale. After all of these processes are followed, it is still possible that harm is done. It is still possible when the boxes have been ticked. But the determination of what is necessary may be questionable. There could be a case where people say, 'Okay, you've ticked all the boxes,' but, still, harm was done by the use of restrictive practices.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance today in a media statement called upon us in the Senate to remove this clause from the bill, saying:

Like the rest of the community, aged care residents must retain the right to seek justice for a wrongdoing …

The current aged care bill includes a clause that will unfairly strip legal rights away from aged care residents in situations involving the use of restrictive practices. It was not a recommendation of the Royal Commission nor of the Commonwealth in its response to the Royal Commission's recommendations.

…   …   …

Immunity removes the basic legal and human rights of residents which has serious—and unprecedented—social, policy, legal and human rights consequences …

Providing one particular sector of the business community with immunity from criminal charges, which can result in penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment, and civil claims in return for compliance with regulations made under an act of parliament signals a new and serious blow to upholding the rule of law.

Offering immunity to commercial businesses is unprecedented. Many aged care providers are 'for-profit' and some are publicly listed companies.

Again, I'd like you to go to the rationale as to why having immunity from prosecution was necessary. Once you've got all of these guidelines and this hierarchy in place and you're requiring the aged-care providers to make sure that they've done all of their due diligence on why restrictive practices are needed—okay, we can accept that. But, once that's occurred, why does somebody, having gone through that, need to have immunity from prosecution?