Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions to the debate on the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023. The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry will aid the detection of new and emerging threats to workers' respiratory health, inform incidence trends, help inform actions to be taken to reduce further workplace exposure, support research into occupational respiratory diseases and assist in targeting and monitoring the effectiveness of interventions and prevention strategies. The national registry achieves this by capturing and sharing data, where appropriate, on the incidence of occupational respiratory diseases and their respiratory-disease-causing agents; the last and main exposures to agents that can cause respiratory disease, including the place of business, industry, occupation and job task; and respiratory health data.

Initially, silicosis will be the only prescribed occupational respiratory disease; however, the bill provides for other occupationally caused or exacerbated respiratory diseases to be prescribed occupational respiratory diseases by the minister after consultation with the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer and state and territory authorities. This ability to prescribe occupational respiratory diseases further to silicosis will allow the national registry to evolve to cater for new and emerging risks to the respiratory health of workers.

The creation of the national registry will better protect workers from silicosis and complement a wide range of other actions being taken by the government. A review of the operation of the registry will be undertaken within 12 months of its operation, including an evaluation of the privacy implications of the scheme in practice. I thank all senators for their participation in the debate, and I commend the bills to the Senate. I also table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the bills. The addendum responds to matters raised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills.

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

Bills read a second time.