Parliamentary Committees

Legislative Review Committee: Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (South Australia) (Remote Area Attendance)

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:01): I move:

That the report of the committee, entitled Inquiry into the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (South Australia) (Remote Area Attendance) Variation Regulations 2019 (SA), be noted.

On 19 June this year, the Legislative Review Committee resolved to conduct an inquiry into the variation regulations that had been developed to support the operation of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (South Australia) (Remote Area Attendance) Amendment Act 2017, more commonly known as Gayle's Law. Gayle's Law is legislation that parliament passed in late 2017 in response to the death of Gayle Woodford. Gayle Woodford was a dedicated nurse tragically murdered in March 2016 while working on the APY lands.

Having resolved to conduct this inquiry, the Legislative Review Committee invited some 27 individuals and organisations to make a submission on the regulations. In all, the committee received 16 written submissions. Those submissions came from a broad range of interested and affected parties, including the managers of health clinics operating in remote Aboriginal communities, professional and industrial organisations, and the chief executives of national organisations, including the Royal Flying Doctor Service, to name a significant one amongst them. The committee also received two submissions from members of the Woodford family.

The submissions contained a variety of views on the variation regulations. Each submission deepened the committee's understanding of the complexity of strengthening the safety afforded to the front-line health professionals working in remote and sometimes unpredictable environments. The majority of the submissions the committee received were supportive of the regulations, recognising as they did both the need and the challenge of providing a degree of flexibility in limited circumstances so that health practitioners in remote areas are able to respond to an out of hours or unscheduled call-out without a second responder, but only where it is safe to do so.

The ability to attend a call-out without a second responder in limited circumstances and to prescribed locations does not undermine the primary intention of Gayle's Law, which is to minimise the risk to health practitioners when answering an unexpected call-out. Anyone who has lived in or visited towns, including Innamincka, William Creek, Marree or the communities on the APY and Maralinga lands, will be aware of the challenges of seeking and delivering health care in these remote locations.

Limited practitioner numbers, patchy telecommunications systems and the vast distances are just some of the issues health practitioners must navigate on a daily basis as they work and live among the communities they serve. A blanket rule, where under no circumstances are health practitioners permitted to attend to the care of a patient alone, could be destructive to community health and risk patient lives in rural communities.

As the Minister for Health and Wellbeing has detailed both in the other place and in correspondence to the Legislative Review Committee, the purpose of the regulations is to ensure that every health professional working in remote areas is protected from harm, while balancing their interests in being able to carry out their job with practicality, skill and care. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their workplace, wherever that workplace may be.

The committee concluded that the disallowance of the regulations, occurring as it would some three months after it came into operation, would undermine the safety of the staff and the sustainability of services they were first and foremost designed to protect. The committee formed that view, as I have indicated, in light of the evidence that came before it in the course of its inquiry. The purpose of the committee's inquiry was to ensure that those stakeholders who had an interest in making their submissions in relation to this important issue, and to make those public, had a means by which they could do that.

The South Australian community is incredibly vocal and passionate about these regulations—and rightfully so—and about how they support the strong desire we all have to keep our front-line health workers safe. Both in the formulation of the regulations and in their examination by the Legislative Review Committee, key organisations, including the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia, Tullawon Health Service, CRANAplus, the AMA, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and others, were consulted and invited to contribute to the evidence before the committee.

It was vital for the committee to be informed by the insights, experience and challenge of delivering health services safely—and, I stress 'safely'—in remote areas. However, there will always be risks. Unfortunately, in no situation can a guarantee be made about the absolute safety of every individual. That is simply the reality and nature of the job, and I am sure that everyone here admires the selflessness and courageous nature of the people who deliver these vital services. The resilience and dedication of these professionals in caring for some of South Australia's most vulnerable individuals is nothing short of inspiring.

When parliament passed Gayle's Law in 2017, it stipulated that a review of the legislation must be undertaken two years after the legislation came into operation, that is, in effect, after 1 July 2021. The committee has adopted in its final report a recommendation that a review be conducted one year after coming into operation instead of two years. That is the view that the committee reached and is its key recommendation, the subject of the report, and I note that that recommendation of the committee is consistent with a public commitment that had been provided by the Minister for Health and Wellbeing also.

Gayle's Law has been operating in South Australia for some three months already and the committee's recommendation, therefore, should be seen in that context to be a recommendation that it be reviewed very shortly. I note events in the other place overnight and emphasise the committee's recommendation in that context also.

On behalf of the committee's chairman, the Hon. Terry Stephens in the other place, I thank other members of the committee: the Hon. Connie Bonaros MLC, the member for Kavel, the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos MLC and the member for Cheltenham. I also take the opportunity to note on behalf of the committee our thanks to the committee secretary, Mr Matt Balfour, and to the committee's research officer, Lisa Baxter.

I also want to thank and recognise all those who not only provided evidence to inform the committee to reach recommendations in the light of evidence but also those who assisted in the development, implementation and examination of the regulations that contributed to bringing them into effect. The committee's report, and certainly the recommendations the subject of that report, could not have been made without the engagement of all those to whom I have referred in these remarks. Again, I thank all those who made submissions and other contributions to the inquiry.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (11:14): I would like to begin my contribution on this issue by once again paying my condolences to the Woodford family and telling them how sorry I am that they have had to go through this debate all over again. This is a family that has suffered tremendous loss—the most brutal loss imaginable.

A strong, united family sought to seek change in honour of Gayle Woodford's life, to seek changes that would make things better for all remote nurses and to make sure that her life would be remembered through a reform that would make sure that it never happened to somebody else and that no nurse would ever be put in that situation again. That law was passed by this parliament; it was passed years ago, in fact. They have gone through the process of jubilation at that law being passed, then despondency and significant anguish waiting for it to be enacted, and then now being shocked and appalled by what has happened with the government issuing these regulations, which have weakened Gayle's Law.

I would also like to thank all the nurses across South Australia who have stood up and fought for the appropriate protections for nurses in South Australia. Whether they be nurses in the outback or nurses in the city, nurses have united to say that they believe that this law is important, that they believe the protections are important and that they are not going to stand for the government weakening those protections through a sleight of hand regulation they sought to impose.

The principle of Gayle's Law as enacted by this parliament was very simple: no nurse should have to go alone in remote areas and be put in the same situation that Gayle Woodford was put in. This government put in regulations that exempted a whole range of factors, most of which are reasonable, but some of which completely undermine the entire premise of what this parliament sought to introduce, what the nurses sought to introduce and what the Woodford family sought to introduce. They said that if a nurse conducted a risk assessment of the situation, then they could go alone. If they themselves said, 'I don't think this is going to be risky,' then they would be put in that situation again.

The evidence we have heard from the nurses, from the Woodford family and from so many people in the community is, of course, that that is exactly what happened in Gayle Woodford's situation: she made an assessment that it was going to be safe. She was a caring and loving person who wanted to do good for the community. If this regulation were to stand, it would mean that similar outback nurses in future situations would be put in that situation again, would have pressure on them to respond by themselves in the same situation and would be put at risk once again.

We took the stand that we did not think that was acceptable. The nurses, the Woodford family, the crossbenchers and the upper house all took the stand that that was not able to be accepted. I am delighted that that is now no longer the regulation of this state because it has been disallowed by the other place. This is now the opportunity for the government to make swift amends on their hopeless management of this, turning their back on these important protections, and to put in place the regulations. They should be doing this today, and there is absolutely no reason why they cannot do this today—that is, put in place the regulations without those offensive clauses to make sure that nurses are protected.

I am very glad that, as of today, Gayle's Law stands without that clause exempting that situation happening in South Australia. It is a forward step for nurses across South Australia and it is going to help protect nurses. If the government comes back with regulations that undermine Gayle's Law again, then we will continue to take action through our members in the other place to make sure that this law is not undermined and to make sure that the commitments, including those the minister himself made, are upheld.

This report talks about a committee inquiry that was split. The only way that the recommendations of the committee inquiry worked out the government's way as the member for Heysen said is because the government used its numbers. The opposition and the Hon. Connie Bonaros issued a minority report, which is completely opposite to what the government is talking about here, and highlighted the failures, highlighted the hypocrisy, highlighted the risk to nurses and recommended significant changes to the regulations that need to occur.

It is disappointing that the government sought to use this process to try to back their ill thought-through weakening of Gayle's Law. It is unfortunate that the way this was set up did not allow public commentary and public submissions to the inquiry. Only a select number of people were given the opportunity of making submissions. Let's be very clear: the submissions we have seen from the nurses to this inquiry are damning. The submissions from the Woodford family are damning.

The nurses were consulted when the government was drafting the regulations, and they raised exactly the same concerns, but they were completely ignored by the government after that. This government say that they consult, but they absolutely do not listen to people. Those concerns were raised by the nurses at the time but were ignored. The government sat on this for 14 or 15 months before they issued any regulations at all and, when they did, they completely undermined the law that they were trying to be supporting.

We do have a good situation, in that last night action was taken to disallow these hopeless regulations. I am disappointed that we were not able to get to that vote in this place as well because I think that both houses of parliament should have supported that. The minister said, 'If you gave me another month, I would have come up with something different.' Well, this minister has had 18 months in office. The law was passed before he came to office. He has shown no ability so far to construct regulations that satisfy Gayle's Law, and the upper house was not willing to permit a situation in which the opportunity to disallow those regulations could have passed.

These regulations absolutely should have been disallowed. They are a blight upon what the parliament intended with this law, and any proper Legislative Review Committee would see that. Any proper Legislative Review Committee that was acting in the interests of the parliament, not in the interests of the government party in power, would be saying, 'This is not what parliament intended.' These regulations go exactly to the opposite of what parliament intended, including the opposite of what the now Minister for Health said in his speech on those laws when they were passed by the parliament.

Unfortunately, this Legislative Review committee was split on party lines, with the government pushing through its agenda not on behalf of the parliament but on behalf of its political party to defend its weak minister who sits in that position. I think that is a disgrace. Also a disgrace is the fact that this committee could not even keep it together before they issued their report, to the extent that we have the minister going out, talking about what submissions had been given to the committee before the committee had reported to the parliament. I know that there were members of the Legislative Review Committee who were completely outraged about that conduct of the committee.

I am also aware that there was a vote of the committee in which originally this was voted to disallow because all the members were not there. The opposition was all there, the Hon. Connie Bonaros was there, but not all government MPs were there and they lost the vote. I am also told that apparently there were threats to walk out on the Legislative Review Committee by the government MPs at the time, and then they overruled that vote later to put in their own recommendations against the previous votes of the Legislative Review Committee.

This entire process has been a complete farce. This has undermined the law that we should have been passing. This has been a threat to the protections we are trying to put in place for nurses. It has relitigated the pain for the Woodford family. Most importantly, it has dismissed an opportunity that we should all be working together to protect outback nurses, and I am so disappointed that it has come to this point.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:24): I thank members who have contributed to the debate. I resist the urge to engage in a debate in relation to committee process, save to say—

Mr Picton: Well, it was a disgrace. You wouldn't want to defend it, would you?

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna will cease interjecting, please.

Mr TEAGUE: —the committee conducted the inquiry in the circumstances that I have described and considered the evidence and, in light of that evidence, made the findings that it did. I otherwise refer to the report and ask that it be noted by the house.

Motion carried.