Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 3091 together:

(1) Clause 143, page 157 (after line 16), after subclause (2), insert:

(2A) The Commissioner must not impose a condition unless the condition is of a kind that is prescribed by the rules.

(2B) Subsection (2A) does not apply to a condition covered by subsection (3).

(2) Clause 143, page 157 (line 17), omit "The conditions may include, but are not limited to,", substitute "The conditions covered by this subsection are".

These are the final amendments that the opposition will be moving in relation to this significant package of reform. The reason that we're seeking to do this is that, during passage of the bill through the necessary procedures through this place, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee raised some quite significant concerns about the powers of officials to create offences that are the subject of severe penalty. Most particularly, the bill actually delegates the power to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner to make conditions of registration and the power to impose penalties in addition to those authorised by the parliament. It also appears, as it's currently written, that there will be no requirement for the commissioner to provide evidence of the breach of the condition of registration.

Coalition senators are very concerned, as clearly was the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, that powers of this nature undermine the sovereignty of the parliament. We cannot have people who are working in government agencies making decisions around actions that are likely to incur severe penalties without them firstly having a reason to do so, but we also believe the sovereignty of the parliament is paramount and that anything that is going to attract a severe penalty requires the oversight of the parliament. What we've sought to do with this amendment is to make sure that any of the conditions that are imposed are of a kind prescribed in the rules and that they cannot be imposed without the scrutiny of this parliament by some form of instrument or regulation. I highly commend these amendments to the chamber because I don't think that any of us in this place want to undermine the sovereignty of this parliament.