Wong Pansy: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11277] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I want to make three points in this 5-minute speech. First of all I would like to acknowledge the effort of my colleague Dr Lynda Scott who is National’s spokesperson on health.. She has worked extremely hard to strike a balance between maintaining the success of this cervical-screening register versus the right of women to choose for very personal reasons to withhold their consent for their primary health records to be audited. 
From my experience and knowledge most women are very cooperative and want to ensure that a cervical-screening register will work. They cooperate in good faith and I think that is proven by the number of participants in the present system. But to decide that because a woman for whatever very personal reasons has opted to say she does not want her private record to be audited she will be expelled and excluded from participating in the cervical-screening programme is I think harsh and punitive. I wonder what women have done to deserve that. I would caution the Minister of Health the Hon Annette King a fellow woman to consider that very carefully to reconsider her decision in good faith and to accept the amendment recommended by my colleague Dr Lynda Scott. Women do not usually hold back consent for selfish reasons and I think we do have to respect women’s individual rights. Dr Lynda Scott has gone to extreme lengths to maintain that delicate balance. 
My second point is that I was really disappointed with United Future’s Judy Turner who said that women should be punished if for any reason they did not allow their primary health records to be audited—that they should be punished by removal from the register. I could not believe that a fellow woman MP would say that in Parliament. I felt really really frustrated and I hope United Future will reconsider its position. I think that men for various reasons would want their primary health records to be withheld and we should as a society respect individuals being responsible for making those decisions. I urge the Minister of Health and United Future to reconsider because we have to make a very difficult decision in trying to balance the right of privacy with the success of the cervical-screening system. I think Dr Lynda Scott has struck that very very sensitive fine balance. I think it would be a shame today in Parliament for any woman MP to say we should punish women because for very valid personal reasons they do not want to subject their primary health records to audit. 
The last point I want to make is that I believe that the Minister of Health wants to engage women in the programme in good faith so I appeal to her to pay special attention to women of ethnic communities and to consider ways of using a language that they understand in order to get their consent. It is important to strike a balance between privacy and the success of the programme and to ensure that women truly understand that their rights are respected. I appeal to the Minister to do that. 
I emphasise once again that Dr Linda Scott has worked long and hard. It was a very difficult situation for the National caucus to strike a balance between the rights of women and the wish we have that the system should be able to be successful.