Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Emergency Services Providers) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 November 2017.)

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (11:03): The Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Emergency Services Providers) Amendment Bill was introduced by the member for Stuart on 19 October 2017. The bill seeks to add staff of the Royal Flying Doctor Service to the categories of emergency workers listed in the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Act 2007 where a blood test may be directed by a senior police officer to be carried out on a suspect who is reasonably suspected to have assaulted an emergency worker in circumstances where there is a risk of the transmission of an infectious disease. The government is pleased to support this bill.

The Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Blood Testing for Diseases) Amendment Act 2015 and the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Blood Testing for Diseases) Variation Regulations 2016 came into effect on 12 December 2016. This legislation passed with all-party support and seeks to provide enhanced support to those emergency workers who may be assaulted in the course of their occupations. The 2015 act amended the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Act 2007 to provide that any offender who is reasonably suspected of having assaulted an emergency worker or having committed other specified offences of violence can be required, at the direction of a senior police officer, to undertake a blood test to test for the presence of infectious diseases in circumstances where the emergency worker is exposed to the alleged offender's bodily fluids.

This requirement arises where there is a risk that the emergency worker, in being so exposed, could have been exposed to an infectious disease. Such testing assists the treatment of the assaulted emergency worker. The 2015 act applies to healthcare workers at a hospital or an accident and emergency ward, paramedics, police officers, firefighters (including the Country Fire Service), State Emergency Service volunteers, St John Ambulance officers, lifesavers and Department for Correctional Services staff.

There is established evidence regarding the alarming incidence of workplace violence upon police, medical and nursing staff, and paramedics. Some of these assaults are committed in circumstances where there is a risk of the transmission of an infectious disease. Research indicates that medical and nursing staff in accident and emergency wards, and other contexts, and paramedics, are at an equal if not greater risk of contacting an infectious disease as a result of being assaulted in the course of their occupation than even police officers. To be clear, paramedics and emergency ward staff are at greater risk than police officers of being infected.

As the member for Stuart noted, Royal Flying Doctor Service staff are also subject to the same deplorable risks of workplace violence—notably, by offenders under the influence of alcohol or drugs—and the possible transmission of an infectious disease, as are other emergency workers. The RFDS and its dedicated staff play a highly valuable role especially in remote and rural communities. Its staff should have the same protection accorded to them as other similar emergency workers already have in relation to workplace violence.

The member for Stuart has raised a consequential change to amend the Criminal Law Consolidation (General) Regulations 2006, to provide that the Royal Flying Doctor Service will be an emergency services provider. This means that offences upon the Royal Flying Doctor Service staff will be treated as an aggravated offence under section 5AA of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935. The government is pleased to support this change.

Policy and consistency suggests that the Royal Flying Doctor Service should be treated in the same manner as other emergency agencies and occupations listed in regulation 3A of the Criminal Law Consolidation (General) Regulations 2006 so that an aggravated offence under section 5AA of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 will extend to offences on RFDS staff. This amendment will increase public awareness of the gravity of offending upon RFDS staff and help ensure that any such offences upon RFDS staff are treated by the courts with the gravity with which such offences merit.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:07): I thank the Government Whip and very much thank the government for supporting this private member's bill. This is an important but very simple and very straightforward change. I will not go over all the reasons why both the opposition and the government have decided to support this, but I would like to thank Courtney White in particular, an RFDS staff member working at the Marree clinic, who brought this to my attention a few months ago and raised it with me. Very shortly after that I spoke with Mr John Lynch, the CEO of RFDS SA/NT, to be sure that that was something the organisation wanted as well, and certainly that was affirmed. This is incredibly important and incredibly straightforward.

For those members who may not have followed this debate too closely, the reason why it is important is that the nature of the work that the RFDS is doing and the nature of the service that the RFDS is providing to people in more remote places has changed over the years. While it still includes the traditional flying to a remote town or a remote sheep or cattle station to pick up a sick or injured person who is in need of urgent care, they now run some clinics in remote places and do emergency callout work—much in the same way as ambulances do work in metropolitan country areas, as most members here would be familiar with.

The nature of the work has changed so the nature of the risk to RFDS employees has changed, and the risks have increased. It is very appropriate that they get exactly the same protection as already exists under the law for other emergency services workers who face these risks, so thank you again to the government.

As well as moving the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Emergency Services Providers) Amendment Bill 2017 here, I also wrote to the Attorney-General back on 19 October this year with regard to the Criminal Law Consolidation (General) Regulations 2006 to make the change that the Government Whip talked about because, while we need to change the law, we also need to adjust the prescribed employment list under 'emergency services provider'.

While I have not yet received a response from the Attorney-General, on the strength of the government's support for the bill in this place, I am of course very optimistic that the Attorney-General will write back to me very soon and confirm that RFDS will be included in that emergency services provider list. I thank my colleagues for their support on this bill many months ago, and I thank the government for their support today.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:11): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.