Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It's a real pleasure to speak in the third and final reading of this bill. As we know the original Act was passed in 2003 and what it aimed to do was to make sure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise. The Act as a number of people have talked about covers a whole range of health professionals including doctors—so the Medical Council nursing and midwifery councils the Dental Council and Pharmacy Council. The Act has had a number of reviews as people have mentioned. One was completed in 2009 and another in 2012. Those reviews basically found that the Act was pretty much functioning as intended but what they did was they suggested just a number of improvements. So what I'd like to touch on tonight are just a few of those that we've looked at as the Health Committee. The first one is the five-yearly performance reviews. Up until now it's been really difficult for people to assess how well the responsible authorities are actually carrying out their functions and so what the bill does is it requires those responsible authorities to undergo independent performance reviews at least every five years with the first ones starting within three years. What needs to happen is that the Ministry of Health needs to consult with the responsible authority and any other people that they think are relevant then appoint an independent reviewer and also set the terms of reference and then the reviewer gets on and does that independent review. But then they need to come back with a full written report and in that report they need to outline any recommendations that need to be made. Part of this is about transparency because once that report's given to the ministry and to the authority then that authority needs to publish the report on their website. Within the select committee there was some discussion about making sure that it wasn't just something that was done but then there was also due regard to implementation. So what the responsible authorities are required to then do is document any recommendations they propose to implement and also within what time frame and also if they're not going to implement some of those recommendations then say why not. So that makes it much more transparent in terms of their performance and also where they're going with the recommendations. One of the other ones that people have touched on is broadening who can actually talk to or inform responsible authorities if they've got a concern about a health practitioner. At the moment health practitioners' employers or the Health and Disability Commissioner can inform a responsible authority but what this does is it broadens it out so that anybody—a member of the public or a patient—can inform a responsible authority if they have concerns about that practitioner. So it makes it a much more straightforward process for doing so. One of the other ones is naming policies. So what the bill requires is that responsible authorities develop policies that outline what their decision making is around releasing the names of practitioners that they have reviewed in terms of their competence or fitness to practice. It's important that what they're doing there is balancing that need for basically the public interest—so naming a practitioner if they have failed to meet expected standards—against the rights of a practitioner to have privacy and natural justice and getting that balance right. But there is greater transparency around that. Then just finally is better workforce data because we all need to be able to look at where we are currently with our workforce to be able to be doing the planning for future projections. We've got an ageing workforce in many areas and we need to make sure that we're one step ahead in terms of where we need to go over the next five- to 10-year horizon and so what this bill does is it puts in requirements that responsible authorities provide better information to the Director-General of Health on the registered practitioners. So that's just things like name date of birth and then where they work and place of work. But also as a select committee we wanted extra information just on ethnicity and gender so that we could look at our workforce as a whole and also in thinking in terms of culturally appropriate services and making sure that we've got the workforce that we need. So just summing up what this bill does is it makes quite a number of significant improvements to the Act and basically makes it much easier and more efficient in terms of responsible authorities making sure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise. Therefore I commend the bill to the House. Bill read a third time.