Newman Muriel: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Newman Muriel: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11267] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak in the debate on the Committee stage of the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill and in particular Part 1. Part 1 consists of the commencement date which I note has now been pushed out by a year. I am not the ACT member who sat on the Health Committee to look into the bill and I understand from that member that the committee has done a very thorough job which is why I understand the date has been pushed out to 1 July this year. But I do note that the bill itself has changed as I understand it from being a “think big” bill—in other words it was supposed to be an umbrella bill under which a whole lot of screening programmes could have been slotted in—to being a more modest and specific proposal to deal with just the cervical-screening programme. I am very pleased to hear that because anybody who knows anything about national programmes—databases screening programmes or whatever one wants to call them—knows that they are or can be fraught with problems. The fact that the Government has another half-year to get its planning into place before it launches the provisions in this bill must allow the Minister to sleep a little easier. 
I already know from my own experience and the experience of people I know that the present cervical-screening and breast-screening programmes are fraught. They are fraught with problems because people get advised late—years late—that they are due for another screening. When they turn up for a screening—in the breast-screening programme in particular—they are told to go to the wrong place at the wrong time. All sorts of problems arise because the programmes are trying to deal with a lot of people. In this case I understand that about a million women will have to be brought on to the programme and as we have already heard there is now an opt-out provision. But a million women means an awful lot of planning. Again the fact that the commencement date is 1 July this year does allow some grace for all those officials who will have to take part in that planning process because it is no mean feat. 
I understand that some of the concerns raised by the ACT party have been taken into account in the way the bill has been set up and I say to the Minister that it is a positive thing—she has enabled the concerns of all the members on the committee to be looked at taken into consideration and addressed. The problem that we have from the outside is that it would be very nice to have an assurance or a plan from the Minister to tell us how she plans to implement the programme which as I say will be dealing with a million women. It starts on 1 July 2004 so the question is whether that is the date on which planning starts—or is the planning already under way right now so that on 1 July 2004 the first lot of women get their letters to say that they are now due for their tests? 
Given that this bill is in its Committee stage—which does allow different submissions to be put to the Committee on changes and modifications that could be made to the bill—it would be very helpful to the Committee of the whole House if the Minister could walk us through the programme and the progress that she intends to take between now and 1 July 2004 and then walk us through what she intends to do on 1 July to get this programme dealing with a million women under way.