Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (12:03): Mr Speaker, I thank you for the consultations and the way that you have been deliberating over this issue of great significance to the House. I move:

that:

(1) the House Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests consider the claim for privilege in relation to the material seized by the Australian Federal Police under a search warrant executed on the Department of Parliamentary Services at Parliament House on 24 August 2016 and which is subject of a claim of parliamentary privilege by the Member for Blaxland under paragraph 6.11 of the 'AFP National Guideline for execution of search warrants where parliamentary privilege may be involved' and make a recommendation to the House about its ruling on the claim;

(2) in considering the claim, the Committee shall have regard to the law of parliamentary privilege, including the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 and any case law relevant to the interpretation of the Act;

(3) the Committee shall provide affected parties with the opportunity to make submissions on the claim of parliamentary privilege, including on the application of the law of parliamentary privilege;

(4) if the Committee is able to determine the matter without the material being examined, it shall accordingly make a recommendation to the House about its ruling on the claim;

(5) if the Committee is unable to determine the matter without the material being examined, it may engage expert assistance to examine the material and report to it on the claim of parliamentary privilege. The Committee shall then make a recommendation to the House about its ruling on the claim; and

(6) if the Committee approves the engagement of expert assistance to examine the material, the Clerk of the House shall make the material available to the expert/experts so engaged only for the purpose of their examination of the material, but otherwise the material shall remain in the custody of the Clerk of the House at all times until its disposition is determined by the House, and shall not be examined by the Committee.

Question agreed to.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (12:04): The National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 and the National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016 are important bills (1) because they do something very important, but (2) because they highlight the incompetence of the government in implementing something as important as the National Cancer Screening Register. They are doing something that is important and, once again, they are doing it badly. In speaking today I want to highlight both those sides: what is important about the register itself, and the process that the government have gone through that has got them to the shemozzle that they are in today with this legislation.

Firstly, the Cancer Screening Register itself will replace nine existing registers: the National Bowel Cancer Screening Register and eight state and territory registers for the National Cervical Screening Program. Labor supports the establishment of a cancer register. It will reduce duplication and improve the prevention, identification and treatment of cancer in Australia. Because it will link through to GPs' desktops, GPs will be able to see the entire cancer screening history of their patients. Labor also supports the improvements to cancer screening programs that the new national register will enable. The National Cervical Screening Program will move from a two-yearly pap test to a five-yearly cervical screening test. This implements recommendations that were actually made by the independent Medical Services Advisory Committee, and this is expected to prevent an additional 140 cervical cancers a year. As with so many cancer prevention strategies, none of us will know the names of the people who were saved by this, but it is an incredibly important move. The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will accelerate its transition to biennial screening—again, incredibly important—with Australians aged 50 to 74 screened every two years by 2020, instead of 14 years late by 2034. We know from clinical trials that biennial screening can prevent between 300 and 500 deaths per year. Again, it is incredibly important that this register be established, and it is a good thing.

But when it comes to the implementation itself we really do get a completely different story.

The register will hold Australia's most sensitive health data, like the results of cervical and bowel cancer screening, and we need to get it right. On the Labor side, we are incredibly concerned that the government has already carried out moves to outsource the register to Telstra, to privatise the keeping of what is incredibly important data.

I am going to leave aside the dishonesty during the election campaign, when they were declaring strongly that they would not outsource Medicare, when, four days before they called the election, they had already signed a contract with Telstra to outsource the cancer register. Let us leave that aside. Let us leave aside the fact that they planned to make a major announcement during the election campaign and then, when it became clear that the people of Australia did not want their medical services to be outsourced, they decided to cancel that announcement. Let us just that aside and deal with the process itself that got us to this point.

It is important to remember that the announcement for the cancer screening register was not made in the 2016-17 budget. It was actually made in the 2015-16 budget, so it was made over a year and a half ago, and two years before the register was due to come online, effectively, on 1 May 2017. So, in the announcement in 2015-16 they gave themselves two years to get the register, the legislation through the parliament, have it established, sort out its processes and get it right. And it is incredibly important that we do get something right when such sensitive information is held on the register. But what we found was that through the year 2015-16 to 2016-17 there was no legislation to establish the cancer register. It was not put forward. But what happened instead was that four days before the calling of the election a contract to manage the register was let to Telstra. So, roughly a year after they announced they were going to have a register, they let a contract to Telstra to manage a register, before the legislation had gone through parliament.

I think every business out there would wonder what is in that contract, because at that stage the legislation to establish the register the contract was for had not passed the parliament and we were heading into an election the government was not guaranteed to win. If we were honest, we had no idea during the election campaign what the parliament would look like, yet the government was letting a contract to a major corporation for a register that did not exist and had not passed the parliament. Heaven knows what is in that contract, but it must be an interesting one, with a lot of blank spaces.

The government now has to rush the bill through the parliament so that Telstra, which has the contract, is able to deliver the cancer register by 1 May 2017. You need to understand there that Telstra has no experience in the managing of this kind register. In fact, there is not a single cancer register in the world that is managed by a private entity; they are all managed by public entities, as they are in Australia. So Telstra has no experience whatsoever in setting up or managing a register of this kind and is busy at the moment running around to the existing holders of the nine registers trying to poach their staff and borrow their expertise so that they can actually meet this deadline. So we are now looking at a government that is trying to rush the legislation through the parliament to meet a deadline they have, by their own incompetence, shortened to a ridiculous extent.

When Labor and the crossbench referred the government's bills to the Senate inquiry, the health minister, Sussan Ley, accused Labor of a hysterical tirade. But in an embarrassing rebuke of the government their own privacy and information commissioner made six recommendations to fix the legislation to the Senate inquiry. Some of the loopholes identified by the commissioner were really alarming. For example, the government's bills, as drafted, may allow the register operator to collect all Medicare claims information on people who are on the register, and not just the information that relates specifically to the cancer register. Under the government's plan this would allow Telstra to see all the health services that a person had received, including in sensitive areas like mental health and sexual health. So that is one really alarming area of privacy that the commissioner alerted the government to.

Last week Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation and the government has come kicking and screaming into accepting many of those amendments. We understand the government will move a series of amendments that will meet many of the demands that Labor has made, because they are actually quite reasonable demands. Arguably, if the government had spent sufficient time on getting this register right over that year where it sat idle, they may have handled these matters themselves and may have done the appropriate consultation to handle these kinds of really quite obvious problems with the legislation.

Yet, the government still cannot get it right. The legislation is still absolutely full of holes, so Labor is moving three more amendments that the government refused to accept. Those amendments fall into three areas. First, relating to Telstra itself, to limit the operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or a government agency. I will come back to this. Second, is mandatory disclosure, so that individuals are notified when their most sensitive health data is breached. Third, an amendment to increase the penalty for unauthorised use of or disclosure of information. On the Labor side we would think that these are three really obvious amendments that will have the support of the people of Australia. First, that something as sensitive as a cancer register should be held by a not-for-profit organisation or a government agency. Second, that if data is breached individuals should be notified. Third, that the penalties for unauthorised use of or disclosure of information are substantial, substantial enough to ensure that a private company would be extremely concerned that such unauthorised disclosure did not happen.

I will come back to the detail of those amendments. The Telstra amendment, which limits the operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or a government agency is there for a very simple reason. Telstra has never operated a register like this. In fact, no for-profit corporation anywhere in the world does it. It is new territory and it is extremely sensitive information for the government to be using in a guinea pig approach for Telstra's first foray into health.

It is going to contain extremely private health information that has never been handed over to a for-profit company. This includes the Medicare number, the Medicare claims information, the preferred GP, HPV vaccination status, screening test results, cancer diagnosis—incredibly sensitive information which has not, in Australia, been held by the corporate sector before today. So, Telstra will know things like whether you have had a cervical or bowel cancer test, whether you have a precursor to cancer or genetic markers that may lead to cancer or whether a woman has had a hysterectomy or a partial hysterectomy—incredibly sensitive information.

In fact, the Senate inquiry revealed that it is not just the Labor Party that is concerned about keeping this kind of sensitive information in the hands of the corporate world. The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and other experts share Labor's concern about outsourcing the register to a for-profit corporation. Labor's amendment, in clear English, would ensure that the register would have to be held by a government agency or a not-for-profit. Incidentally, not-for-profit organisations and government departments are currently quite successfully holding the nine registers that currently exist.

The second amendment concerns mandatory disclosure so that individuals are notified when their most sensitive health data is breached. Under the government's legislation, if and when there are data breaches, Telstra has to tell only the Department of Health. That is it. We understand that the government will now accept Labor's amendment to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is also notified. That is an improvement, although, as I said earlier, the Minister for Health originally said we were being hysterical about this, but they have agreed to that. But it is really not good enough: if a person's health privacy is breached, that person should be advised of that breach. So that is the second amendment, and it is consistent with our position across all portfolios. Unfortunately, the government has a history on this. When sensitive Medicare and PBS data was breached the government took weeks to come clean. So this is an important amendment for protecting consumer rights.

The third one is the penalties amendment. Under the current bill the penalty for recording, using or disclosing information without authority is $21,600—for Telstra—for misusing or disclosing information without authority. In the six months to December 2015 Telstra reported a profit of $2.1 billion. It is hard to see how, for a corporation of that size, a penalty of $21,600 would be a sufficient deterrent to ensure that the corporation had data security in the forefront of its mind. First, they have to tell only the Department of Health—and now, because of the amendment, the Privacy Commissioner—and they get fined what is a drop in the ocean for a corporation the size of Telstra. The former Secretary of the Department of Health, Stephen Duckett, said:

The automatic consequences of release of data – inadvertent or not – must be made so great that any risk-management matrix will ensure the organisation and its managers always have patient privacy at the forefront of their mind.

Even stakeholders that are generally supportive of the government's legislation, such as Pathology Australia, have called for a review of the fine for offences to ensure that they are an appropriate deterrent.

Under the Crimes Act 1914 a court can impose a penalty of up to five times this amount on a corporation. So, if Telstra is the register operator it could be fined $540,000 for breaching the legislation. This penalty of $21,600 is simply insufficient, and it should not be discretionary. If individuals or organisations inappropriately use Australia's most sensitive health data, the punishments should be severe and automatic. These three amendments—to prevent data being held by a corporation but, in the case where it is, mandatory disclosure of any breach of data privacy and serious penalties for disclosing information or publishing it either intentionally or inadvertently—are absolutely essential items. It is a shame the government did not spend the time they should have spent on this. They would have had two years to make it happen. Rushing legislation like this and rushing a process that is as important as this is an absolute sign of their incompetence.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (12:19): The National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 is another example of this government's bungling of so much of the legislation that comes before this parliament. We see that the legislation now being debated is going to be changed by the government, thanks to the efforts of Labor and crossbenchers who had it referred to a Senate committee for inquiry. At that time, the minister said that this was another hysterical tirade by Labor.

To put the importance of this matter into context: one in three Australian men and one in four Australian women will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 75. Each year more than 123,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in Australia and an estimated 45,700 pass away because of the illness. President Obama, in his State of the Union address on 12 January 2016, in recognition of the devastation and prevalence of cancer, said:

For the loved ones we've all lost, for the family we can still save, let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.

Such are the prevalence and effects of cancer across humanity. For that reason, this legislation will be of widespread interest to Australians, as very few Australian families will not be affected by cancer at some stage in their lives, and therefore the register itself will become relevant to them.

The effect of this legislation is to pool nine registers that currently exist across the states and territories and the national register into one single national register. It is a concept Labor supports, because it will have benefits. The register, however, is an important document. It will include Medicare numbers and Medicare claims data. It will function on an opt-out basis only. That is, most people's names will be included on the register, because I doubt that too many of them will opt out of it. It will also capture other sensitive information, such as whether a woman has had a hysterectomy and the person's GP or health provider, the HPV vaccination status of the person, bowel and cervical cancer screening test results, and bowel and cervical cancer diagnosis.

Indeed, some 11½ million Australians may have their health information on the register.

The register will, of course, also serve a useful purpose in managing the risks and health effects of cancer. The existing registers are presently managed by the state and territory governments. In Victoria, I understand that the Victorian Cytology Service handles the register on behalf of that government. Under this proposal, the government wants to effectively outsource the register to a private body, in this case Telstra. I am not aware of Telstra ever having had any expertise in managing a register of this kind. My understanding is that the current register holders have, to date, had no complaints made against their ability to manage and hold the relevant information, and yet the government now wants to outsource the register to Telstra for five years, with a right of renewal for an additional 10 years. This is a $220 million program. I have not seen the contract itself and I am not sure whether anyone in the opposition has seen it. We do not know what the government has promised Telstra and agreed to with Telstra, and we do not know why Telstra was chosen in the first place. What we do know, as a result of the Senate inquiry, is that it would appear that in no country in the world does a private organisation hold a register of this kind. We do not know where the register is going to be kept or where it is going to be housed. Is it indeed going to be sent offshore, as so many other operations of private companies are? We do not know what the attraction was for the government to give the register to Telstra. What is even more interesting is that the agreement with Telstra, as the member for Parramatta has already pointed out, was signed on 4 May, just before the calling of the last federal election. It was never announced at that time, and one can only speculate as to why, but the government said very little about it at the time. I suspect it said very little about it because the government knew that giving this kind of information to a private company to hold would not have been a popular move throughout the Australian electorate.

As a result of this legislation having been brought to the parliament and then referred to the Senate for inquiry, there will be, I understand, some amendments moved by the government. I understand also that the Information Commissioner made some recommendations with respect to the legislation. So we have the Information Commissioner and the Senate inquiry both recommending amendments to the legislation—before it has even passed this place, highlighting just how badly the proposal was put in the first place.

As the member for Parramatta has quite properly pointed out, Labor will be moving some additional amendments, because, whilst the government has accepted some of the changes that have been proposed, the government has not gone far enough and there are still holes in this legislation. Labor will be proposing some additional amendments to try and tidy up those aspects of the legislation that the government failed to address with its own amendments. In particular, Labor will be moving amendments relating to who is able to hold this kind of information, the mandatory disclosure of information and the penalties that arise for any breaches in respect of it. Each of those three matters is important. Who holds the relevant information is a matter of deep importance to most Australians. We currently have registers held by organisations that are run directly either by the government or by not-for-profit organisations that have had a track record of keeping this information and using it appropriately—and yet none of them have been asked to manage the cancer register for the national government into the future. One has to ask the question: why? We know that Telstra has not in the past managed such a register. In fact it has, to my knowledge, very little expertise in this area or with respect to managing health matters generally. As I and other speakers on this side of the parliament have pointed out, the register will contain very, very sensitive information, I suspect, for most Australians. As the Senate inquiry pointed out, even organisations like the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners share Labor's concerns about the register being handled by a for-profit corporation.

Given that the government has already signed the contract, I do not know if it is in a position to withdraw from it, but it is of serious concern that the contract was signed before this legislation came to parliament and was passed by the parliament. It leaves the parliament in a situation whereby, if we, as a parliament, were to support Labor's amendment, we would also be in a position where we would have to deal with a contract that has been signed by the government. It is not the kind of position that I believe a parliament should ever be faced with and, frankly, it just highlights the incompetence of the government—perhaps in its rush, before the election, to get the contract locked and signed away with Telstra.

The other two matters go to mandatory disclosure. Again, I cannot understand why the government would not agree to any breaches of information from the register being disclosed to the person who owned that information. It is not sufficient to simply say that we will allow the Information Commissioner to make the decision as to whether the information needs to be passed on to the person involved. I would have thought that most Australians would say: 'We are happy to be on the register. However, if there is a breach, then we have the right to know.'

It is not a matter of whether someone should decide whether they have a right to know. They have a right to know, and Labor's amendment will ensure that that is the case.

The last point is with respect to penalties. The member for Parramatta has quite rightly pointed out the proposed changes that Labor has in mind with respect to penalties. Currently, the penalty for any breaches is $21,600. For a corporation like Telstra it is not a significant amount of money. Labor's proposal is that the penalty be increased to $108,000 and up to five times that amount for a corporation. That makes the penalty a substantial penalty of $540,000. That, in my view, will ensure that, at the very least, Telstra—who does not necessarily have a good track record in this regard—will do its best to ensure that it manages the register appropriately and that there are no breach of privacy with respect to the information that is contained within it.

All in all, Labor's amendments make this better legislation. I will be interested to hear, when the minister sums up, why the minister will not accept Labor's amendments, particularly with respect to penalties and with respect to privacy breaches that might occur in respect of the legislation.

In summing up, Labor's shadow minister for health, Catherine King, who is in the chamber here today, addressed Labor's concerns about this legislation several weeks ago. As a result of those concerns, the legislation went to a Senate committee, as I pointed out earlier on. The legislation is now better as a result of the proposed amendments that, I understand, will be coming back to the parliament. However, those amendments do not go far enough. The government should seriously consider accepting all of the amendments that Labor is proposing. That way it will have the legislation in place that, I believe, will serve the Australian people much better. I wait with interest to hear just what the government's response to Labor's proposals is, and, indeed, to see the specifics of the amendments that it proposes as a result of Labor having taken this matter to a Senate inquiry.

Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (12:32): The change in the conversations that we have in this place is remarkable. Less than 24 hours ago we had the government continuing their pretence about 'Mediscare' and about Labor being wrong about the push to privatise Medicare. Well, this debate and the way in which the government have tried to push this issue through the parliament—where they have not been honest with the Australian people—is another example of why we are arguing that the government's real agenda is to privatise Medicare.

Let me say from the beginning, as previous speakers on this side of the House have said, Labor strongly supports the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Register. However, it has to be done in the proper and correct fashion. What we heard during the election, after the election and as recently as this morning is that prior to the election the government signed a contract with Telstra to establish the National Cancer Screening Register. Like other speakers, I will outline the weaknesses in the government's push to do that. If you are saying on the one hand, to the average Australian out there, that, 'We have no plans to privatise,' yet you sign a contract with Telstra to privatise part of what people would see as a government service, then they put two and two together and say: 'What is the government on about? I thought they said Medicare was safe from privatisation.' It is clearly not, and this push by the government is another example of their real agenda for Medicare.

So keen were they to rush this legislation through that we are here today with amendments. These amendments are necessary to ensure that the data that the register will hold—the most sensitive of health data—is not going to be misused or leaked and that it is safe. The register will hold Australians' most sensitive data, like the results of cervical and bowel cancer screenings. We need to make sure that we get any establishment of this register right. We have concerns about the government's shambolic approach to this important legislation. There are serious concerns about how they have managed this. It demonstrates, again, how chaotic the government are.

On the eve of the last election, this government signed a $220 million contract to outsource the register to Telstra, before this parliament even saw the legislation. When you talk to people in the community, Deputy Speaker Mitchell—and I know you would have lots of these conversations with them—and when you explain that the government signed a contract with Telstra for the new National Cancer Screening Register most people roll their eyes. They struggle to get Telstra on the phone to fix basic phone services! They struggle to get Telstra out to look at faulty connections! There are problems and issues within Telstra. They have a lot of work to do to rebuild their brand. They have a lot of work to do to rebuild respect and their relationship with people in regional Australia in particular. So to hand them a $220 million contract right before the election means people in the community are rolling their eyes and saying: 'What will happen? What does this mean?'

In an embarrassing rebuke to the government, their own Information Commissioner has made six recommendations to the Senate inquiry to help fix the legislation. Some of the loopholes identified by their own commissioner were alarming. So, while the government claim that we are being hysterical, we were actually proved right again. This seems to be a bit of a pattern with the government—for example, the government's bills draft may allow the register to operate to collect all Medicare claims and information for people who are on the register. All Medicare claims! It is clearly a loophole that the government did not foresee.

Last week Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation. The government has now accepted many of these and we understand that it may have more to be presented. We too have our own to make sure that we close all of the loopholes in the legislation. There are still gaps that are being identified by their own people, by health services.

I recently held in my electorate a number of hearings and forums about Medicare. I want to spend a few moments on that because it is an issue that people in the community are scared about. They are scared about the increasing out-of-pocket expenses in relation to Medicare. They are scared about the cost of going to the doctor. Several people have said to us that since the government froze the Medicare rebate and started to talk about a co-payment or a GP tax their doctor has started charging a gap fee. So, whilst bulk-billing rates are high in areas like Bendigo, more and more doctors are charging a gap on top of that. Doctors have also told us that they, unfortunately, have to do that because of the cost of running their clinic. It is alarming that we have GPs now saying that their practices are becoming unviable because the government has continued the freeze on the rebate. The price they are getting from the government means that their practices are struggling to break even.

In the city and places like North Melbourne it is not such a big issue because their bulk-billing to fee-paying ratio may be 75 to 25—75 per cent have the disposable income to pay upfront and 25 per cent may be bulk-billed on a concession card only. In parts of the region it is the complete reverse. In parts of Bendigo, like Kangaroo Flat and Eaglehawk, households are struggling on the smallest of incomes, so their ratio is the complete reverse. Some 75 to 80 per cent are bulk-billed concession card holders and only about 20 per cent can afford to pay upfront. If you do the maths, you work out very quickly that it is hard for these GP bulk-billing services to continue.

What happens when GPs start to increase their fees is that people stop engaging with primary health care. They stop going to the doctor when they need to. They might turn up in our emergency departments. They stop doing preventative health care. We want people to be proactive. Let me turn to how this relates to this register. It is a very similar story when it comes to people being proactive about getting regular testing. Take a Pap smear, for example, and it talks here about the cervical cancer register. I had one person tell me that it cost her $70 to go to the doctor to get her Pap smear test. She had to pay a bit of a fee to get the test done and she had to pay to go to the doctor. She will get some of that back through Medicare, but she said: 'I didn't know until I turned up and I had to have $70 in my bank account to do it. I will now think in two years time whether I will actually go. I will have to plan ahead to have the money in my account.'

That is the wrong message we want to be sending women. It is the wrong message we want to send to people over 55 around bowel cancer or prostate cancer. We want to encourage people to go to their GP and have these tests because we know that when it comes to all of these cancers early intervention and early diagnosis are critical. We have been able to drastically reduce the rate of women dying of cervical cancer because we have early testing, and we have had a strong community based campaign to encourage that.

My concern about some of the reforms that have been put forward is that, if it is not guaranteed that people's data and results are kept secret—that they have the privacy that they currently have within our government departments—people will not go. Until it is guaranteed and people are sure that Telstra can get this right, that the government can get this right, people may be deterred from getting these vital tests that can help improve their health outcomes. If there is a sad case where they are diagnosed, they can seek the help they need.

Another alarming thing that has come up as well through the discussions we have had is the cost involved with cancer treatment. It is an area we do need to look at. A decade ago a woman in Bendigo was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said her out-of-pocket expenses were about $300. Today a woman in Bendigo, who decided to pay for some of it upfront because she wanted the best quality care she could get, paid $30,000. It is extraordinary that in one town, a decade apart, two women diagnosed with breast cancer had such different experiences when engaging with our health system—$300 versus $30,000.

I do not believe that the government really understand what is going on on the ground, particularly in regional areas, when it comes to health care and healthcare delivery. That is why I do not believe they fully understand what they have put forward. They have rushed legislation in relation to the National Cancer Screening Register. They still have not closed a number of the gaps and loopholes. There are a number of amendments that we will still put forward. We want to see the government adopt them because only through adopting these amendments can we ensure that the new register does have the confidence of the community, does have the confidence of the health profession and does have the confidence of this place that it will actually do what it is to do.

The amendments will still allow the register to be operated by one government agency or a not-for-profit organisation that has successfully managed existing registers. This is critical. This is what people want from their federal government when it comes to health care and healthcare delivery. Labor's amendments will also provide that the new National Cancer Screening Register be operated only by the government or a not-for-profit agency. This is critical. It goes to the heart of one of Labor's arguments about this government's hidden agenda to privatise Medicare. We believe that a register of this nature—the National Cancer Screening Register—should be operated by the government or a not-for-profit agency.

It should not be operated by a for-profit agency.

How can members of the government stand up and say the government has no privatisation agenda for our health system? How can they do that in one breath knowing full well that they signed this contract to a private company in the midst of an election hoping that people would not notice? I know some of the people in the Nats still see Telstra as a great government business. You guys sold it off years ago. It is now a profit-making independent business. It is not part of the Australian government; it is not owned by taxpayers in any way. So to try and link the two is just messy and a demonstration of how chaotic this government has become.

I hope the government will realise the importance of these amendments. Again, it is an example of how, in opposition, we have cleaned up the government's mess. This legislation is another example of how the government are not really interested and are not putting in the time and the detail we need to ensure that we have good quality health care. They have managed to turn the good idea of establishing a National Cancer Screening Register into another shambolic attempt and another mess that they have created. It demonstrates that they do not really understand what is going on in our regions with regard to health care and Medicare.

Mr PERRETT (Moreton—Opposition Whip) (12:46): I too rise to speak on the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016. We all know how important screening for cancer is. More than 130,000 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Sadly, nearly 47,000 of these, our fellow Australians, will die from cancer. The risk of any of us being diagnosed with cancer is staggering. In 2016 the chance of a man being diagnosed with cancer by their 85th birthday is one in two—50 per cent—and for a woman it is one in three.

Like most Australians, I care about this topic and, unfortunately, like many other Australians, cancer has touched my family. In fact, my mum, who was a former nurse, had a screening in 1989 and then was treated with a lumpectomy in 1995. I remember that particularly well because it was the year I was married. Mum was treated a day before my wife's bridal shower and she did not tell anybody. She was just part of that stoic, good old Irish Catholic stock. She did not tell anybody. It was like it was no-one else's business. Thankfully she was treated with the lumpectomy and had the lump removed, and she went on to live a longer life. She died in May 2011. Because of that family history, all of my three sisters were screened below the age of 40. Sadly, on my father's side, my aunt—Aunty Ann—died from breast cancer and my mum's sisters and my cousins also have that breast cancer gene. So it is so important that we get screening right. We know that it is vital.

BreastScreen Queensland do great work. They were the pioneers, in fact, of cancer screening. They were the first public breast-cancer-screening service in Australia. I say an especially big hello to all of those who work at their Brisbane south side service, especially those operating out of the QEII hospital in the middle of my electorate of Moreton. They do fantastic work; they save lives every day. There are 11 services throughout Queensland and each service has several satellite locations. With Queensland being such a decentralised state, even on Brisbane's south side they have seven satellite locations so that everyone can have access to this important screening service.

We know that screening for breast cancer is effective. The mortality rate for breast cancer has decreased from 17 people per 100,000 back in 1968 down to 11 people per 100,000 in 2013. The Cancer Council has confirmed that it is clear that a substantial number of Australian women are alive today because an early-stage breast cancer was detected through the BreastScreen Australia program.

Screening for cancer can save lives. I recently turned 50 and I was happy to participate in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. I know it is not a sexy topic, but is just something that all people need to do.

Mr PERRETT: I hear that, Deputy Speaker—that you cannot believe that I am 50, but that is the case!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yeah, I'm shocked!

Mr Pitt interjecting—

Mr PERRETT: The member for Hinkler, I am sure, would say the same thing! Labor supports the establishment of the National Cancer Screening Register because it will replace nine existing registers, reduce duplication and improve the prevention, identification and treatment of cancer in Australia. It is the right step for a modern federation. All the information about cancer screening and treatments for an individual will go to the one register. It will enable a person's GP to see their entire cancer-screening history, wherever that screening occurred in Australia. It will be particularly beneficial for people who move between states and territories, so particularly the military and their families. In Australia in 2016, this is more the norm than the exception. That is the modern Australia: people will move for work, economic opportunities and study opportunities.

This bill will also improve the current available screening programs for cervical cancer and bowel cancer. The change to the National Cervical Screening Program will see a two-yearly Pap test being replaced by five-yearly cervical screening tests. This change will implement the recommendations of the Medical Services Advisory Committee. This new screening process is expected to prevent 140 cervical cancers a year and hopefully more. The change to the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will see the process increased to biennial screenings. Australians aged 50 to 74 will be screened every two years by 2020, and clinical trials indicate that biennial screenings will prevent around 300 to 500 deaths per year.

Labor applaud and support these changes to cancer screening, and we wholeheartedly support the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Register. But we do have some concerns. When Labor and the crossbench referred the legislation to a Senate inquiry, they were accused by the Minister for Health and Aged Care of a 'hysterical tirade'. In a submission to that inquiry, the government's own recently reappointed privacy and information commissioner made six recommendations to fix the legislation. The commissioner identified that the government's legislation allowed the register operator to collect all Medicare claims information on people on the register.

This information would include all the health services a person has received, including very sensitive information like mental health and sexual health. Recently, Labor proposed nine amendments to the government's legislation, and the government, after much kicking and screaming, has accepted many of these amendments. We understand that the Turnbull government will move some amendments to its own legislation to meet the demands that the Labor health team has suggested. I thank the shadow health minister for her work in this area. However, the government's legislation, even if it makes the amendments it has agreed to, will still be full of holes.

Labor will be making three additional amendments to the legislation to ensure that Australians' personal information is collected and used appropriately and that adequate penalties are in place to protect all Australians. First, Labor will make an amendment to limit the operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or government agency. The government's legislation would actually allow it to outsource the register to multinational for-profit corporation. I repeat: that is what the current legislation would allow—a multinational company or for-profit corporation to do this work, the handling of Australians' private information.

I do note that the Turnbull government has already entered into a contractual arrangement with Telstra to operate this new register. Four days before Prime Minister Turnbull called the election, this government signed a contract with Telstra to operate the National Cancer Screening Register. That is extraordinary, because there was no legislation that had been passed and none was before the parliament when that contract was signed. The health minister never announced that a contract had been entered into. After the media reported the contract during the election campaign, the health department—the public servants—issued a media release defending the contract. This is yet another example of this government trying to privatise our health care.

Labor has serious concerns about outsourcing Australians' personal details to a for-profit multinational company. This register will hold extremely sensitive information about all Australians who are eligible for cancer screening programs—information such as names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth, gender, sex, Medicare number, Medicare claims, preferred GP or other health care provider, human papilloma virus, or HPV, status, screening test results, cancer diagnoses. It is unprecedented that this type of sensitive health data would be held and managed by a multinational company, in particular a multinational company with a history of privacy breaches. In fact, there is nowhere else in the world—I repeat: nowhere else in the world—where for-profit corporation operates a cancer screening register. The Labor Party understands the ideology of those opposite to the outsourcing of public health. We see it every day; we saw it before the election, during the election campaign and we have seen it since the election.

In 2011 Telstra had a privacy breach within their own organisation where the personal details of 800,000 Telstra customers were left online and available to anyone via Google for eight months. Our health records are important and deserve the best protection possible. Labor believes that the best protection would be for the register to be operated by organisations that are not at the whim of their shareholders or that are focused on extending their profit margins. Who would these organisations serve, the patients or their shareholders? What if there were a breach? Who would we contact if we suspect there has been a breach? Telstra? They are not exactly known for their prompt customer service, as many Australians can testify.

The information that this register will keep could not be more sensitive. Telstra will know whether a person has cancer; whether a person has a precursor to cancer or genetic markers that lead to cancer; whether a woman has had a hysterectomy; whether a person who identifies as a man is biologically a woman. This information is incredibly personal. It is not information that any of us would want to be available for general consumption. The AMA, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and other experts all share Labor's concerns about outsourcing the register to a for-profit corporation. It is not much of a stretch to imagine how this information could be very valuable if it got into the wrong hands.

This bill also allows the minister to make rules which would give Telstra an even greater volume of personal information. Why would the government even consider making a multinational for-profit organisation the custodian of this sensitive, personal information? There is no need to look to multinational for-profit organisations to operate this cancer screening register. There are a range of government and not-for-profit organisations which are currently successfully managing the existing screening registers, such as the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, which operates the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program Register; the state and territory organisations which operate the National Cervical Screening Program; the Victorian Cytology Service which operates the Victorian and South Australian registers for the cervical screening program. There is no reason why any one of these organisations, which already have expertise in managing these registers and which have proven track records in this area with good checks and balances, could not operate the National Cancer Screening Register.

In fact, the Senate inquiry heard evidence that one of these organisations could deliver the register on time from 1 May 2017. So this Turnbull government is gambling with the sensitive personal health information of Australians. Telstra has never operated a register like this before. There is no way that the government could be confident that it would successfully manage this important and crucial register. It is particularly concerning when Telstra's core business—the one it has been operating for many years—has recently struggled with numerous network outages. The Prime Minister, during the election campaign, said 27 times that he would never outsource Medicare, yet this 45th Parliament has already seen a bill from this government that effectively does exactly that. This bill will allow the government to hand over to a multinational telecommunications company the Medicare numbers and Medicare claims of Australians. So Labor's amendment provides that the new National Cancer Screening Register can only be operated by a government or not-for-profit corporation.

Second, Labor will move an amendment to ensure individuals are notified when their most sensitive health data is breached. The government's legislation only mandates that if there is a data breach Telstra only has to tell the Department of Health. Individuals should be told if their most private health records are accessed inappropriately. When sensitive Medicare and PBS data was breached recently, the government took weeks to come clean about the breach. So Labor's amendment will mandate disclosure of data breaches to the affected individuals.

Thirdly, Labor will propose an amendment to increase the penalty for unauthorised use or disclosure of information. The bill does provide for penalties for breaches of privacy but they are almost laughable when we are talking about multinational companies. The penalty is $21,600 for recording using or disclosing information without authority.

How much did Telstra make last year? In the last six months of 2015, Telstra had profits of $2.1 billion. So while a not-for-profit might find a $21,000 fine prohibitive, for Telstra it will not even cause a ripple.

Stephen Duckett, former health department secretary, said:

The automatic consequences of release of data – inadvertent or not – must be made so great that any risk-management matrix will ensure the organisation and its managers always have patient privacy at the forefront of their mind.

So Labor's amendment would increase the penalty for unauthorised use or disclosure of information from 120 penalty units—$21,000—to 600 penalty units, or $108,000. Under the Crimes Act 1914, a court has a discretion to impose a penalty up to five times this amount on a corporation. So Telstra, if it were the operator of the register, could face a fine of up to half a million dollars.

In the last sitting week of parliament the government was insisting that its legislation had to pass without scrutiny. We now know why they did not want this legislation looked at too closely: it was a mess. Labor's amendments will try to fix a very poorly-thought-out piece of legislation.

There is one aspect of the government's behaviour that sits very badly with me: this idea of entering into of a contract with Telstra to hold this register, all done quietly a few days before the election. Telstra Health, which is the name of the branch of Telstra that the government wants to look after Australians' health information, is described in its own media release when it announced its 'selection' to deliver and operate the Australian National Cancer Screening Register. Clearly, this is a business that is intended to make a profit and we need to scrutinise this decision much more closely.

Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (13:01): It was very useful to listen to the member for Moreton who, of course, is a very strong advocate for his community and for community access to health care that is quality, that is accessible and that is affordable—and, of course, that is safe and secure for people, including in relation to their privacy. He is a very fine member, and someone who I am very grateful to have as a neighbour in Brisbane because, of course, our electorates border each other. So I wanted to thank the member for Moreton for his contribution on this National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016

Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, as you know, this bill is about the National Cancer Screening Register. Obviously—I think it probably goes without saying, but just to avoid any possibility of doubt—we on the Labor side strongly support the establishment of the National Cancer Screening Register. We also strongly support improvements to cancer-screening programs that the new register will support. But we do hold some concerns about this particular bill. This bill relates to the establishment of the register, and it should be noted that the register will hold people's most sensitive health data, like the results of cervical cancer testing and the results of bowel cancer testing. So, given the sensitivity of the health information that will be contained in the register, it is very important that this parliament gets the framework right. That is why we have such serious concerns about the government's shambolic approach to this legislation.

I think it is really quite disappointing that this government pre-empted the election and pre-empted the legislation coming before the parliament by actually signing a $220 million contract just before the election was called—on the eve of the election being called—to outsource the register to Telstra. We had not even seen the legislation in this parliament when they signed that contract.

It is a massive amount of money—$220 million—and to sign up to a contract in relation to this register without having the legislative framework even before the parliament, and in the dying days of the 44th Parliament just before the election was called, I think speaks for itself. It was deliberately intended to try to lock the government into a position and to try to force that position on this parliament without really any thought being given to the possible ramifications for privacy.

Let's just talk about the sort of information that will be contained on this register. It will have your Medicare number. It will have your Medicare claims information, which could show important information about the appointments that you have had. It would have your preferred GP or other healthcare provider—and there are some people who go to very specific forms of healthcare services and who would not necessarily want that in the public domain.

It has your HPV vaccination status, this data. In other words, it has the status of whether you have been immunised for HPV. It has screening test results and it has cancer diagnoses—very, very highly personal types of data. The sensitivity and personal nature of that data are important to everyone. It is important to everyone that they can be assured that their data will be kept private if it is on a register.

It is particularly important that people do not fear for the privacy ramifications to the extent where they do not go and get the screening done or they do not go and get the testing done because they are so worried about privacy ramifications. So people need to feel that there is a very robust privacy framework in relation to very highly sensitive health information. People need confidence that their privacy will be protected.

For example, Mr Deputy Speaker: as you know, I have portfolio responsibility for equality. I am concerned that this bill will create a framework where highly personal information about a trans man who has a cervix will be kept in this register, and this register will be in the hands of a private firm. I am concerned about that for obvious reasons.

One of the reasons that this is such a difficult issue, of course, is because the government has been completely hopeless when it comes to protecting people's privacy and protecting data. In fact, it was in February 2015 that there was a report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommending that mandatory data breach notification legislation be introduced into the parliament by the end of 2015. And it was in March 2015 that the government response to that report agreed to that report. They agreed to that report.

Of course, in the previous parliament we had introduced mandatory data breach notification legislation, but it had not gone through in time before the election and had lapsed. The government then took office in September 2013 and did not even agree until March 2015 to bring forward data breach notification provisions. And it was not until 30 November 2015 that the government produced an exposure draft of its proposed mandatory data breach notification legislation.

That is a very, very long time. More than two years after they were elected, the Attorney-General finally brought forward into the public domain, in draft, proposed mandatory data breach notification legislation. He then conducted a consultation process. That consultation process ended in March 2016. A year after they had agreed to bring forward mandatory data breach notification legislation by the end of 2015, we finally had the end of the consultation process.

After that process, the Attorney-General said, 'Alright—we will be bringing this legislation forward in the winter 2016 settings.' It did not happen, did it? No, it did not happen. There was no mandatory data breach notification legislation brought forward in the winter 2016 settings. The most recent reporting indicates that the Attorney-General is now saying that we will be seeing this legislation in the spring sittings. There was a media report on 4 October in which the outlet reported that Data Governance Australia was calling for the bill not to proceed, but the Attorney-General's Department was saying that it would be introduced in the spring sitting. That remains to be seen, because, as is entirely obvious from the really tortuous process that I have just described, the Attorney-General has been utterly hopeless at bringing forward mandatory data breach notification legislation to this parliament.

We are seeing the consequences of that right now. They have signed a contract with a private firm to host the National Cancer Screening Register well in advance of bringing forward the legislation and even on the eve of the last election, as I mentioned. But there is no mandatory data breach notification legislation in place, so what has happened? There has been an outcry about this bill. I might say that full credit needs to be given to the shadow minister for health. The shadow minister for health is an excellent, tenacious shadow minister who has worked extremely hard to shine a light on the outrageous conduct of this government in relation to the Cancer Screening Register. It was through her work that the concerns about privacy have been raised.

The government has now conceded that she is right to have those concerns about privacy by indicating that it will have legislative amendments to this bill to deal with data breach notification. But they are inadequate amendments. It is very unfortunate that this government thinks it is okay just to have some reporting programs in place, not to the people whose personal information has inadvertently or otherwise been leaked, but to a government agency. The amendments are not good enough. It is because this government has been so completely hopeless when it comes to data breach notification laws that these amendments to this bill have to be brought in in this ad hoc manner.

I mentioned how effective and thorough the shadow minister for health has been in relation to the concerns about this legislation. She has certainly been very, very firm in holding the government to account on all matters to do with health care. This secret contract signing became public on 26 May 2016 in an article in Fairfax. You will recall that the shadow minister, through public comment at the time, made very clear her concerns that this was yet another example of this government's intention to outsource functions of Medicare.

At the time, she blew the whistle on the fact that the health minister was going to try to announce that Telstra would be given control of the private medical details of millions of Australians by being awarded the contract. She made very clear our concerns about the fact that this was going to go to a private firm, when in fact there are not-for-profit entities in existence that already have significant expertise in relation to cancer screening registries. She has been very firm on our concerns about this specific registry, but also on our concerns that this is the thin end of the wedge. The Prime Minister has made no secret of the fact that he wants us all to pay more for our health care, whether it was early support for the GP tax; the couple of billion dollars worth of cuts to health in the form of freezes to the MBS schedule; the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to pathology, which will see people needing breast screens or melanoma scans paying hundreds of dollars, or possibly more, for those tests; the increase in the cost of PBS medicines for everyone, including pensioners. There are a range of concerns that we have about this government's approach to hollowing out Medicare and hollowing out universal health care in this country. This idea that you should privatise and outsource the Cancer Screening Registry is another example of that, on top of the privatisation task force that the Turnbull government had previously established.

It is regrettable that the Prime Minister's only plans for Medicare, the government's only plans for Medicare, the Liberals' only plans for Medicare and the Nationals' only plans for Medicare are to hollow it out and cut it. It is a disgrace. What we need in this country is universal health care. What we need in this country is health care that depends on your Medicare card, not on your credit card. What we need in this country is a situation where the circumstances of your birth, your income, your family background and your cultural background do not affect the quality of health care that you can have access to. We will always stand up for those principles, because Labor created Medicare and defends Medicare. The Liberals attack Medicare, but we will always stand up for universal health care.

I want to be very clear about our concerns with this piece of legislation, which I believe I have done. But I am also concerned about the broader questions of data security that arise from this government's failure to bring forward mandatory data breach notification provisions. This is a very, very acute situation, where it is highly personal and sensitive information, like your cervical cancer history, your cancer screening history, your cancer diagnosis history or the question of whether you are a trans man with a cervix. But there are other areas also affected by the failure to bring forward mandatory data breach notification provisions.

Specifically, there are concerns about the government's intention to look at outsourcing or privatising some other forms of data that are presently held by government, and, of course, some of those have been in the news recently and are the subject of some controversy.

Beyond speaking about that issue, I do think that this is an opportunity to speak about what a shame it is that this government has so comprehensively stuffed up the process for this bill. There is such strong bipartisan support for a National Cancer Screening Registry. There is such strong bipartisan support for the improvements to the cancer screening program—improvements that will actually see a situation where we will have an estimated 140 additional early diagnoses and preventions of cervical cancer every year. Those are the things that we strongly support for which there is strong bipartisan support. But to have a sneaky process of secretly doing a deal to set up a contract with a private firm before the election was called—on 26 May that become public—well in advance of any legislation tabled in this parliament for debate so that the Australian people could not even see the legislative framework that was going to surround this contract, and then to do so in a way that the health minister had to then rush out and defend it because she had done it behind closed doors and had not been straight with the Australian people, is a very great shame. To have so comprehensively failed to be able to help people in relation to their data security is also a very great shame.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:16): Labor strongly supports the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Registry, but this register will hold some of people's most sensitive data, including the results of screening for cervical and bowel cancer, so we have to ensure that we get it right.

While I am on the subject of cervical cancer, I want to use this opportunity to send a message to Australian women about the important need for them to get regular Pap smears. I have a friend who is currently down in Melbourne at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre undergoing her second round of tests as a result of being diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer last year. She spent six months in Melbourne, in and out of Peter MacCallum, getting treated. She had a pretty good diagnosis at the end of it, but she is down in Melbourne again getting a reassessment of how things have progressed. It is a very aggressive form of cancer, and she had to go through a number of interventions.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum for looking after her so beautifully. She has nothing but high praise for the team at Peter MacCallum. They helped her through a very difficult time both physically and emotionally. She was down there, quite often on her own, in those clinics addressing the subject of her own potential mortality. The support team at Peter MacCallum who looked after not just her health concerns but also her emotional wellbeing concerns were fantastic. Again, I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum for doing such a wonderful job of looking after her. She is down in Melbourne at the moment getting the next round of tests—may the news be good. She is a very close friend of mine, and it came as a huge shock to all of us when she heard this news last year. She has been amazing in dealing with it, confronting it with the stoicism that she has come to be known for. I wish her all the best on the test results. My thoughts are with you, my dear friend.

Once more, I want to take this opportunity to thank the team at Peter MacCallum, who have helped her through this very challenging time—may it be an end to this challenging time—but who also help hundreds of thousands of Australians each year in providing health support and also emotional wellbeing support.

Creating a register for data of this level of sensitivity requires taking the time to consider options, to consult with the community and to review and refine the final product. Australians expect the best, and that is what they deserve. Labor supports the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Register so long as it meets the community's highest expectations of quality, safety and security, and that is a long away from what the government originally proposed.

When it comes to the National Cancer Screening Register, the Turnbull government's policy-making process has been an absolute shambles. On the eve of the election, the Turnbull government signed a $220 million contract to outsource the register to Telstra before parliament even saw the legislation. On the eve of the election, they signed a significantly large contract with a for-profit organisation before parliament even saw the legislation.

This is typical of the Turnbull government's commitment to oversight and accountability. Apparently the only people who need to see and review the government's legislation before contracts are signed are in the Turnbull cabinet. We, on this side of the House, see no virtue in bad policy done on the fly as is so typical of this government. We, on this side of the House, believe in getting policy right. When Labor and the crossbench referred the government's bills to a Senate inquiry, we did so to ensure the expectations and concerns of the community were met and addressed.

It is entirely reasonable for the community to expect that a national register of individuals' most sensitive data is well designed and well produced to ensure a well-functioning outcome. According to the Minister for Health and Aged Care, referring legislation to the Senate amounts to what she has termed an 'hysterical tirade'. These are her words. According to the minister for health, it is her government's view that a commitment to good policy is not reasonable; it is hysterical. What an embarrassment it must have been for the government's own Privacy and Information Commissioner to have made six separate recommendations on how to fix the legislation. While the government set about accusing its opponents in engaging in hysterical tirades, Labor began the process of getting right what the government has persistently got wrong: bad policy done on the fly.

A good government would not rely on the opposition to fix its mess, but this shambolic Turnbull government's mismanagement of the legislation for a national cancer screening register has left us with no choice but to get actively engaged in this. We do not think it is an hysterical tirade to question the wisdom of letting the register operator collect all Medicare claims information on people who are on the register. This is what the government's plan originally proposed. Under this plan, Telstra would be able to see all health services a person has received, including in sensitive areas, like mental health and sexual health. Telstra would be able to see all those health services on those very sensitive issues.

Australians deserve better than that. They deserve a better standard of protection than that, and they are not getting it from this government. That is why, last week, Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation. We have dragged the Turnbull government kicking and screaming to the table, and it appears they will move a series of amendments to accommodate our demands.

While the government accused us of some hysterical tirade, we set about getting the policy right. We set about fixing the mess left by the Turnbull government. The Turnbull government has turned around, admittedly—tail between its legs—and has said, 'Labor, maybe you do have a point. Maybe this legislation could do with a few changes.' They have agreed to a few of Labor's amendments but they have not agreed to all of them. They have put pride before policy and, as a result, their legislation is still full of holes. But the community expects that we will get this right, as I have said many times through the course of this speech. This is holding sensitive data about their health—about their mental health, about their sexual health, about their history.

So in addition to the Labor amendments that the government is accepting, we will move three amendments that they have refused to accept. Our amendments strengthen the protection of Australia's personal, private and sensitive information. Our amendments ensure that this data is collected appropriately, is reviewed appropriately and is protected appropriately. We think making good policy means that if you know there is a gap or a loophole you close it. But by refusing to accept Labor's amendment to close a number of glaring loopholes, the Turnbull government seems to think that good policy means saying 'no' to fully protecting Australians—because it was Labor's idea to do so. This is how churlish they are: 'It was Labor's idea, so let's just say no.'

We think committing to a policy that is full of loopholes, despite a number of cybersecurity concerns, is not a recipe for good policy. But it seems it is another example of this government and its leadership sticking with a bad policy even though they know it is bad. We will not do the same. That is why Labor will proceed with its amendment to limit the operation of the register to a non-for-profit organisation or a government agency.

The Senate inquiry heard that you cannot find a country—anywhere in the world—where a for-profit corporation is responsible for the operation of a cancer screening register. This is not the sort of innovation Australia needs. The register should not be signed over to an untested, unproven operator that exists to deliver a profit. Yet that is what Telstra is and that is what the government is trying to do. It is offering Telstra access to some health information that we have never offered access to before—your Medicare number, your Medicare claims information, your screening results. This is the information being offered, for Telstra to have access to.

The government is signing off on giving Telstra access to data that reveals whether a person has cancer, whether a woman has had a hysterectomy, whether a person who identifies as a man is biologically female. And all of this information will be signed over to Telstra to look after. The Turnbull government may think that is not a problem. It may accuse us of engaging in hysterics, of throwing tantrums, of generating outlandish conspiracy theories, but I wonder if they also accuse the Australian Medical Association of the same? I wonder if the Turnbull government's minister for health is about to press 'send' on a media release accusing the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and other experts, of another hysterical tirade? These organisations share Labor's concern about outsourcing the register to a for-profit organisation. They are concerned, as Labor is concerned, that handing this data to a private for-profit corporation with a history of privacy breaches represents a fundamental failure to protect Australians' most sensitive and personal health information.

We want the best protection and we want the best policy. That is why Labor will move an amendment to ensure that individuals are notified whenever their most sensitive health data is breached. The Turnbull government's legislation means that if and when there are data breaches, Telstra's only responsibility is to notify the Department of Health. It appears that the government is now willing to accept Labor's amendment that the privacy commissioner be made aware of any breaches. That is a significant improvement, and it is to be welcomed. But it does not fix the fundamental problem that lies at the heart of the amendment I am concerned about here today. Unless the privacy commissioner's own personal, private health data has been compromised, in some way, by a breach, the amendment will not do enough of what it should do.

What the community expects and deserves is to be told if their most private health information is accessed inappropriately, and we have serious concerns that this expectation is not being met by the government's proposed legislation. The government says it is up to the privacy commissioner to tell individuals, if they choose to do so. This is not mandating notification. This is treating disclosure as an optional extra. It is not making it a requirement. It is, basically, at the discretion of the privacy commissioner. It treats notifying an individual that their sensitive data has been breached as an after-thought, as not a fundamental responsibility. I am sure—I know—that most Australians will be significantly concerned about that.

It was Labor that first introduced mandatory data-breach notification legislation in 2013 and it was Labor that reintroduced the legislation in 2014. It was Labor that qualified its support for legislation, in 2015, on the government committing for bringing mandatory data-breach legislation to a vote by the end of the year. We do not have it, because the government did not do it. The government says it agrees but it drags its feet on mandatory disclosure. This is a chance for the Turnbull government to match word with deed and show it believes in mandating data-breach notifications. This is an opportunity for the government to show that it is listening to the community, that it is listening to the AMA, that it is listening to the general practitioners, that it is listening to the community's expectations that their sensitive data about their health—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.

Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (16:11): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report: Report 7 of 2016.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

Mr GOODENOUGH: by leave—It gives me great pleasure to table this first report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in the 45th parliament. Given this is the committee's first report of the new parliament, I would like to take some time to remind the House of the important role that this committee plays in supporting the parliament's legislative process and reporting on human rights. As the new committee chair, I would also like to acknowledge and welcome new and continuing members of the committee.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights is a scrutiny committee which examines and reports to the parliament on the compatibility of bills and legislative instruments with Australia's international human rights obligations under the seven international human rights treaties ratified by Australia. This is in accordance with its legislative mandate under the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011. This is a technical examination and does not assess the broader merits or policy objectives of particular measures. The committee also has the ability to examine current acts and to conduct broader inquiries into human rights matters referred to it by the Attorney-General.

The committee's purpose is to enhance understanding of and respect for human rights in Australia and to ensure appropriate consideration of human rights issues in legislative and policy development.

The committee seeks to achieve these outcomes through constructive engagement with proponents of legislation and the parliament more broadly. This is often undertaken through a dialogue model in which the committee corresponds with relevant ministers and officials to identify and explore questions of human rights compatibility. The committee also reports its findings and recommendations, and in doing so strives to provide reports that clearly signpost the committee's analytical framework and the content of various human rights.

The reports are intended to clearly set out the human rights analysis of legislation, and ultimately provide clear assessments of the compatibility of legislation that are accessible to members of parliament and to the public more broadly.

Most human rights are able to be limited if there is a proper justification for doing so in accordance with international human rights law. The committee's analytical framework therefore focuses primarily on identifying if a proposed measure might have the effect of limiting the enjoyment of a specific right and, second, whether any such limitation may be regarded as permissible or justified.

The vast majority of bills and instruments considered by the committee do not raise human rights concerns because they either do not engage any human rights or in fact promote rights.

Of the legislation that may or does limit human rights, the committee is often able to assess the limitation as justifiable under international human rights law. In these cases, the committee generally reports on the legislation simply by identifying it as not giving rise to human rights concerns.

The committee's approach generally focuses on those bills and instruments which raise human rights concerns and which have not been adequately addressed in a statement of compatibility.

These remarks I hope draw attention to the great importance of ensuring that statements of compatibility for bills and instruments provide considered and evidence based assessments of how any potential limitations on human rights may regarded as justified. Statements of compatibility are a critical tool for the committee for an adequate dialogue with legislation proponents and parliament more broadly.

For the benefit of those charged with the task of preparing statements of compatibility, I would emphasise the importance of clearly setting out the legitimate objective of the legislation and the manner in which human rights have been considered when framing the legislation. This is crucial when, in order to achieve a particular objective, certain rights are to be limited.

The committee expects that where rights are limited the statement of compatibility will demonstrate that the limitation is rationally connected to, which is to say will be effective to achieve, its stated objective, and explain whether the limitation is proportionate to that objective. The statement should also set out any safeguards that will be applied to ensure that any limitations on human rights are implemented in the least restrictive form. In this respect, I note that a further aim of the requirement for a statement of compatibility is to ensure that human rights are considered throughout the entire policy development and implementation process.

In this new parliament, the committee will continue to build on its previous work by systematically reporting to parliament on the human rights compatibility of legislation. Clearly, parliamentary committees such as this one have an important role to play in informing parliamentarians about the human rights implications of legislation and ensuring better understanding of human rights more broadly.

I encourage my fellow members and others to examine the committee's reports to better inform their understanding of the committee's deliberations.

This report considers bills introduced into the parliament from 30 August to 15 September 2016 and the legislative instruments received from 15 April 2016 to 18 August 2016. The report also includes the committee's consideration of two responses to matters raised in previous reports.

With these comments, I commend the committee's Report 7 of 2016 to the chamber.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ) (17:11): Mr Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that Senator Griff has been appointed a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network.

Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (17:12): I rise today to speak on the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 and the National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016.

As someone new to parliament but a long time in the medical profession I have to admit that delving into these bills has been a bit of an eye-opener. Like any fair minded or perhaps slightly naive person, I was willing to give even this government the benefit of the doubt on setting up a single national cancer screening registry for bowel and cervical cancer. Although proposals for separate national registers for these two and other forms of cancer—principally breast cancer—have been around for a long time, I was not much fussed that the government seemed keen to claim the lion's share of the credit for advancing the single-register concept.

Clearly, there are not unsubstantial benefits to be had in improving how we monitor government programs that have a major impact on national health and wellbeing. No-one disputes that. It is also very important epidemiologically and having got across the legislative history—principally the delay caused by the government's decision to call a double dissolution just three days after these bills were first introduced into parliament—I could see why the health minister might be inclined to cut a few corners off the parliamentary process to get these bills passed, so that the proposed national register can be up and running by the target date of 20 March 2017.

I was also prepared to set aside my concern that this House was being asked to consider these bills before members had had a chance to consider fully the findings and recommendations of the parliamentary committees that are or soon will be examining them—for example, the Senate Committee on Community Affairs, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. It has not escaped my attention either that the constitutional footing on which these bills rest seems a little unsure. That too appears to concern the government, when you turn up the multiplicity of savings provisions that make up clause 15 of the principle bill.

The government's position on that potential pitfall and others might also have been better or more fully explained that that was not a deal-breaker either. Perhaps the minister was not able to access advice from the Solicitor-General. One never knows.

It was troubling that the government had not seen fit to even outline the detailed rules that will govern the operation of the proposed registry. Yes, I know that many of those rules will ultimately turn up in delegated legislation, which either house can disallow; I would just prefer that it did not come to that. Likewise, I did not see the package, in and of itself, as fatally compromised by the limited stakeholder consultation. Consultation is still extremely important.

I did think too that now might also be a good time to move to a national register for breast cancer screening—though here, to be fair, I was reassured by clause 12 of the main bill, which seems to be drafted to allow the scope of the proposed register to be broadened in the future. Such future expansion may well, though, need a specific amendment to the definition of a designated cancer in clause 4 of the bill as presently drafted.

The Australian Privacy Commissioner, who is also the acting Information Commissioner, has joined in criticism of the bills, remarking on the thinness of some of the bills' privacy protections and the lack of clear and unambiguous information-handling requirements. Again, I would still, all things being equal, have seen those possible failings as more of a case of 'do in haste and repent at leisure' than anything sinister.

More troubling, though, was and is the somewhat imperfect compromise struck by the principal bill in balancing privacy protections and any cost imperatives with allowing ready access to data sets for legitimate medical, social and academic research. On that point, I agree with the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association's submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiry on the bills, where it says:

It is important that the data to be housed in the National Cancer Screening Register are made appropriately available for clinical research and also to understand the incidence of cancer in our society, the way we fund the care of people with cancer, what it means in terms of the funding and organisation of our health system. This will allow researchers, clinicians and policymakers to ensure health policy is evidence-informed.

… … …

Without the clinical perspectives and the opportunity to conduct data linkage with other health data sets made possible through collaborative efforts such as this, the value of the National Cancer Register will not be fully realised. It is not yet clear if Telstra Health will be required to provide the cancer data they will hold to agencies such as Cancer Australia and the AIHW, in particular, who have important national roles in the collection, management and reporting of cancer statistics. It is important the Commonwealth clearly outlines who will be responsible for analysing these data, how often will this be done, whether the reports be made public and who will ensure the validity of the results.

The new regulatory regime must promote, and not inhibit, genuine efforts to improve the understanding and treatment of bowel and cervical cancer. In short, on the above criteria I would have given the bills a bare pass mark. The minister had some explaining to do, but you felt that ultimately you could live with what was being proposed, given the probable benefits, which are huge. I think that that is the point that most fair-minded people would have got to. Everyone was trying desperately to love these bills, even if our love was qualified.

But then, regrettably, the minister has invited us all to go one step beyond. The minister, on top of the foregoing litany of missteps and loose ends, now also asks us to accept—again, with very little explanation—that the National Cancer Screening Register ought to be run by a private, for-profit company with limited—virtually no—experience in the health field, Telstra Health. In fact, rather than asking the parliament for its view, she simply went ahead and did the deal. To ice that particular cake, it transpires that Telstra Health, the successful tenderer, was awarded the prize less than a week before the by then much-anticipated double dissolution election was called by the Prime Minister, with the tender outcome announced only after the pre-election caretaker period had commenced. This is not a good look.

Details of the contract between the government and Telstra health remain incredibly sketchy. As the Parliamentary Library's excellent Bills Digest says, the explanatory memorandum is unclear on the value of the contract to Telstra Health. It necessarily follows that the ultimate net cost of this latest outsourcing exercise to the taxpayer is also presently a complete mystery. Telstra Health's substantial submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee is likewise completely unenlightening on the terms of the contract.

Personally, I am not one who believes that public services must always be provided by the public sector, but I am always wary of the monetary and other costs of outsourcing. There is truth, I suspect, in the old saying that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time. Some things do not add value; they just cost a lot more. The profit motive is not always corrosive. It can in some instances, particularly in health care, undermine or reduce the quality of public services. There are services, too, that even delusional conservative governments have come to understand cannot be left to the market without incurring a moral hazard. Private prisons, however badged, are a case in point.

In this case the tender process which locks this and future governments in for five years is not so much poorly explained as barely mentioned at all. As the AMA said:

There has been a lack of transparency around the process for awarding this contract ...

It then added:

The AMA would be more comfortable with it being operated by Government, a tertiary institution, or not-for-profit entity that has little interest in how the data in the register might otherwise be used.

I agree. Why—one cannot help but ask—was no part of the federal bureaucracy considered up to running the register? Has the federal Public Service been reduced to such a level of institutional anaemia that it cannot do its core work anymore? Was the APS even allowed to tender? It would be a perfect fit for Medicare, to enhance its ability to provide data. I have noted, too, the Community and Public Sector Union's submission, which sensibly points to the employment consequences of centralising the proposed register in Melbourne and denying jobs to other states such as Tasmania and South Australia—two states that traditionally struggle to provide enough work for their residents.

It is simply unacceptable—and this is the bottom line for me—to contemplate researchers, Commonwealth and state instrumentalities, charitable bodies and other agencies paying for or having to beg for access to information and data that they need in their daily work of protecting and improving the health and welfare of all Australians. That really would be one step beyond.

As I was preparing this speech I was confident that I would not be the first member to remind the government of Prime Minister's post-election conversion to the idea that his party had much to do to establish public trust in it on matters of health policy. To quote the Prime Minister from a 5 July joint media conference with Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce:

That is a very clear lesson. We have to do more to reaffirm the faith of the Australian people in our commitment to health and to Medicare. [We] have to work harder to rebuild or strengthen the trust of the Australian people in our side of politics when it comes to health. There is no question about that.

Well, 101 days after the election none of the government's Medicare cuts have been reversed. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the health minister or the Prime Minister to affirm their commitment to Medicare. And now we have these bills.

When the British Prime Minister says she does not want her party to be tagged with the label 'the nasty party', at least you get the impression that she may know what she is talking about. With this government, the reflex to be 'the nasty party' on health is so deeply ingrained that they do not even know when they have gone that one step beyond. Those 5 July words of contrition are already sounding pretty hollow.

This bill is deeply flawed. The legislation for a national cancer registry is vitally important. In my own work and in the work people will be doing in the future this is really important. I am sorry that this bill this so flawed.

Mr GEORGANAS (Hindmarsh) (17:24): I rise to speak on the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 and to support the amendments put forward by the member for Ballarat. I think Australians have a right to be a little bit concerned and a little bit worried about the way this particular bill was brought about. The National Cancer Screening Register Bill is a real example of why we should be concerned about Medicare and health and the way that this government goes about its business in this area. But let me be clear that we support the establishment of a national cancer screening register. It is really important that we have good register, a national register, and I make it clear that we support a national cancer register and also support the improvements to the cancer screening programs that the new register will support.

We know that cancer touches the lives of many Australians, not only those affected directly by cancer, but their families, their carers their loved ones and everyone who is connected to them. It is a major health problem in Australia today. According to the Cancer Council, at current rates it is expected that one in two Australian men and one in three Australian women will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85. An estimated 130,500 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Australia this year. We know that cancer is the leading cause of death in Australia. More than 44,000 people died from cancer in 2013. It is a good thing that we live longer but one of the problems is that more people develop cancer in older ages. Around 19,000 more people die each year from cancer compared with 30 years ago.

So we clearly have a responsibility to do everything in our power to ensure that Australians have the best possible care, the best possible services and the best possible systems in place. That is why Labor supports steps that increase the efficiencies. The proposed register is meant to replace nine existing registers. It is good thing that we are coming up with one national register to replace nine different registers, including, for example, the national register for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, and as many as eight state and territory registers for the National Cervical Screening Program.

The proposal has merit because it will reduce duplication and improve the prevention, identification and treatment of cancer in Australia. It is an excellent thing that a doctor or GP will have access to a patient's entire cancer screening history, regardless of whether they live in my electorate in South Australia or they have moved from one state to another or have been away for a while. It is an excellent thing that they will have this history.

A further reason for supporting this national register is the improvements that will flow to our cancer screening programs. For example, the National Cervical Screening Program will move from a two-yearly Pap test to a five-yearly cervical screening test. Not only does this implement one of the recommendations made by the independent Medical Services Advisory Committee, but it is also estimated that it will prevent an additional 140 cervical cancers per year. That is 140 lives that it will touch and benefit.

In addition, as a result of the national register, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will transition to screening people every two years at a much faster rate than previously proposed. This means that Australians aged between 50 and 74 years will be screened every two years by 2020 instead of 2034, as previously proposed. The research and clinical trials tell us that this change could prevent an estimated 300 to 500 deaths per year, and that is a good thing.

All of these proposals make sense. They clearly improve screening and diagnosis and they make it easier for practitioners, GPs and those involved in the health system to do their job. But what we do not support is the outsourcing of this new register to a massive multinational for-profit corporation. That is what we do not like. Certainly, when I speak to people and tell them that the information in this register will be held by a multinational, they do not like it either.

So let's cast our minds back to the election campaign of 2016. On 26 May Fairfax Media broke a story that the government had awarded Telstra the contract to operate the national register. It was then revealed by AusTender that Telstra and the government had in fact signed the contract on 4 May. That is four days before the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called the election. The government signed the contract for the operation of a national register despite the obvious fact that the necessary legislation to establish that national register—the legislation we are debating here today—had not yet passed.

What does that tell us? It is further proof that Australians have every right to be worried about such sneaky measures. Following the Fairfax story that broke regarding this contract, the Department of Health then issued a press release defending the contract. Was this a breach of the caretaker conventions? Who knows. If Australians have nothing to worry about, why the need to defend the contract? Why keep it a secret? So it is imperative that this parliament does its job and carefully scrutinises both the concept of a national register and also whether it should be operated by Telstra, a big, multinational, for-profit company. And there is a very long list of justified concerns. These have been echoed by many of my constituents and others in this place, as well as the shadow minister, the member for Ballarat, and they are clearly reflected in the damaging losses suffered by the coalition government at the last election when it came to health and Medicare.

For example, the new register is designed to hold extremely sensitive information about every Australian who is eligible for the cancer screening programs. This information will be held by a multinational, for-profit corporation. There have been many speeches made in this place and many inquiries into some of the practices and errors that are made by Telstra on a regular basis. This information will include people's personal details, names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth and gender. The information will also include the private health data, including an individual's Medicare number, Medicare claims information, preferred GP or other healthcare provider, HPV vaccination status, screening test results and cancer diagnosis. I have to tell you, I would not feel comfortable with Telstra or any multinational, private company holding that information about me, and I am sure many Australians would not feel comfortable about that either. We accept that this information is necessary for the operation of a register, but not with a massive multinational.

According to the government's own explanatory memorandum, Telstra will also be provided with very sensitive information, including whether a person has genetic markers that may lead to cancer, whether a woman has had a hysterectomy or partial hysterectomy or whether a person is transgender. But what are the implications of taking the step, unprecedented in Australia, of handing over such sensitive information to a for-profit, multinational company? Will Telstra be given access to even more information down the track that we will not be aware of or do not know about? As I said earlier, Telstra has a questionable record of privacy breaches. How will they protect, how will they safeguard, Australians' most private and most sensitive health information? Surely our voters, the Australian public, deserve to ask such questions and have them answered honestly.

What are the bigger implications of a contract of this size on our public healthcare system—a system that Australians are so rightly proud of? We have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. And what are Australians to make of this constant backtracking and denials by the government that are proven wrong? Let us not forget that at least 27 times during the election campaign the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said that he would never outsource Medicare. But isn't that exactly what these bills do—outsourcing to a for-profit multinational company? They put Australians' Medicare numbers and Medicare claims information in the hands of a multinational telecommunications corporation. If that is not outsourcing, I do not know what is.

So let us be clear: if we are not careful, this can open the floodgates to privatising our entire health system, and the government appears determined to do just that. For example, We know that the government spent $5 million trying to privatise the Medicare payments system. Now they want to pay Telstra to store Australians' most sensitive health data. The government's cuts to health care are an attack on our health system and continue to shift costs from Medicare to patients. This is privatisation by stealth.

For all these reasons, Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation. After accusing Labor of a hysterical tirade, the government is now amending its own legislation. But there are three amendments that the government refuses to accept and that we will not give up on. Firstly—and I am sure the shadow minister will speak on these in detail—we are going to proceed with our amendment to limit the operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or government agency. This will address those risks of giving Australians' most sensitive health data to a telco corporation that has never managed a register like this. The existing cancer screening registers are managed by governments and not-for-profit organisations that have expertise in managing the registers. But Telstra has never operated a register like this. Is it sensible to be trialling something that has never been done with such sensitive data? That is the question. It is a worry, quite frankly, especially when we consider the types of data and information that they will be holding on the Australian public.

Today during question time we heard the government side talking about text messages about Medicare. Well, here is proof. This is absolute proof that we are privatising parts of our health system. When I look back over the past three years at the government's track record on health, all I can see is that on a number of occasions they tried to bring in a copayment and when that failed, because of the Senate, they then tried to bring it in through the back door through a freeze on doctors' payments. All these things play on the minds of the Australian public. No wonder they have absolutely no confidence in this government when it comes to health, when it comes to Medicare.

Again, seeing some of the most sensitive data that we have being given to a multinational telco company to run and to hold, is another example of the way we are heading with health.

All of us on this side want to support a national register for cancer, because we know it is a good thing. But we want that information to be secure. We want to ensure that the Australian public has confidence in whoever holds that information and we want to ensure that there will be no accidental release of information, as we have already seen with previous data that Telstra has held. I support this legislation, and certainly with the amendment the opposition has brought to this House.

Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne—Assistant Minister for Rural Health) (17:38): The National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 creates a new legislative framework for the establishment and ongoing management of cancer screening registers. This bill will establish the National Cancer Screening Register, which will support changes to the National Cervical Screening Program to be rolled out from 1 May 2016. The national register will also support the expansion of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, which is critical in the fight against bowel cancer. A number of amendments to other legislation are required once the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 receives royal assent to enable certain information to be provided to the register. These are described in the National Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016. Not only will the national register provide an efficient approach for these two key national screening programs but it will also future proof Australia's approach to population based screening, as it will have the ability to be expanded to other cancer screening programs in the future.

The bill provides a principle based legislative framework to support the government's policy objectives of supporting Australia's health system to meet current and future challenges. The bill will lay the foundation for future work to move towards a national integrated system that captures and reports on individual screening tests and results of relevant follow-up procedures up to and including the diagnosis with cancer or precursor to cancer.

I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this bill. This bill will serve to benefit the health of Australians through more efficient cervical and bowel cancer screening pathways made possible by the establishment of a national register that will facilitate the monitoring of the effectiveness, quality and safety of screening and diagnoses associated with bowel cancer and cervical cancer. The register will also assist general practitioners and healthcare providers in their clinical decision-making, contributing to cancer detection and treatment and cancer prevention in Australia.

Debate interrupted.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ) (17:41): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Ballarat has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (17:54): by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (3):

(1) Clause 26, page 22 (line 16), omit "The Minister", substitute "(1) The Minister".

(2) Clause 26, page 22 (lines 16 and 17), omit "a person", substitute "a permitted entity".

(3) Clause 26, page 22 (line 20), at the end of the clause, add:

   (3) In this section:

permitted entity means:

      (a) a Department of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; or

      (b) a body (whether incorporated or unincorporated) established for a public purpose by a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; or

      (c) a person in the service or employment of a Department mentioned in paragraph (a) or a body mentioned in paragraph (b); or

      (d) a person who holds or performs the duties of an office or position established by or under a law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; or

      (e) an entity (whether incorporated or unincorporated) established for a charitable purpose.

   (4) This section has no effect to the extent (if any) to which its operation would result in the acquisition of property (within the meaning of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution) otherwise than on just terms (within the meaning of that paragraph).

These are very important amendments. They go to the heart of Labor's concerns with the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016. This is a very serious debate we are having here in this chamber this evening. This is a debate about not only who will hold some of the most sensitive health information but the future possibilities of the private, for-profit sector in the health space. We have known for a long time—it happened to us when we were in government—that there are a lot of very large for-profit companies circling our health system. Our system is largely delivered by the public sector. It is delivered currently through Medicare and the Department of Human Services. These companies have been circling for a long time to try to get a slice of that pie. They want a slice of that pie because it is very lucrative and it will make them money. There is a reason why we have suddenly seen a telecommunications company set up the Telstra Health arm. They are not the only ones in this space. There are other large companies that are very keen and have been circling the space of Medicare.

In this bill for the first time we have had a register—the national bowel cancer screening register, which is currently run by the Department of Human Services—contracted to a for-profit company. We also have the cervical cancer screening registers that have been run in the states and territories by their departments or in the case of Victoria and South Australia by a not-for-profit organisation, the Victorian Cytology Service, which has been running that since 1989 in Victoria at least. This is really at the heart of what this government has done.

We know that they have been giving very clear signals to the private sector that there is money to be made here—'We want you to start coming up with ideas to make money out of health.' Labor thinks there is a problem with that. It is a fundamental problem, which needs to have a proper debate. We started to say that we have some concerns about this. Remember that this government signed a contract with a for-profit company to run the Australian government's National Cancer Screening Register—something we support; we want to see the Cancer Screening Register—four days before the election was called. There was no announcement that that was what they had done. They signed the contract before they went into caretaker mode. They did not announce it during the election campaign—we thought they were going to—and then they actually said, 'We are not privatising Medicare at all.' This is a thin-end-of-the-wedge argument. This is where we are starting to see the creep of for-profit companies into what the government is already delivering—the delivery of government services. This is a very substantial change that the government is making. The amendments I have moved say that that is not okay. We do not believe that this new National Cancer Screening Register—part of which is the national bowel cancer screening register, which is already run by the Department of Human Services—is an appropriate service for a for-profit company to run.

We had a Senate inquiry. The government said, 'The world is going to end if you have a Senate inquiry.' Hopefully, we have improved this legislation through the proper processes of this parliament. We have seen this government decide that it is right for a for-profit entity to hold data about you—your Pap smear results and your bowel cancer screening results. They will know a whole heap of information about individuals—your Medicare data, whether you are a transgender individual and a lot of very sensitive information.

The government are also saying that they do not think the Department of Human Services is up to running this sort of register. That is basically what they are saying. We saw this government during the Ebola crisis, for example, give $20 million to a for-profit, private company rather than actually back in our AUSMATs. We saw the government take that $20 million decision. This is another decision they have taken. It is a $200 million contract over five years, with an option of 10, to give a for-profit company an edge when it comes to our healthcare system. The amendments I have moved very strongly say that we do not believe that we should have a for-profit company running this register. I want to make it very clear that we will be moving these amendments in the Senate as well. These are amendments that I believe the House should support because if we do not it is the thin end of the wedge when it comes to this government privatising our Medicare system. (Time expired)

The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (18:10): by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (9) together:

(1) Clause 4, page 6 (line 12), after "personal information", insert ", key information".

(2) Clause 11, page 9 (lines 24 and 25), omit paragraph (e), substitute:

(e) claims information, to the extent that the information relates to whether or not the individual has undergone or should undergo screening;

(3) Clause 12, page 11 (lines 5 and 6), omit paragraph (1) (n).

(4) Clause 12, page 11 (line 7), omit paragraph (1) (o), substitute:

(o) any other purpose that is directly related to a purpose mentioned in one of the above paragraphs.

(5) Clause 17, page 18 (after line 21), after paragraph (3) (g), insert:

(ga) the person does so:

   (i) for the purposes of conducting medical research, and in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles or any guidelines issued by the CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council under subsection 95(1) of the Privacy Act 1988; or

   (ii) in a permitted health situation, as defined in subsection 16B(2), (3) or (4) of the Privacy Act 1988; or

(6) Clause 18, page 19 (line 8), omit "120 penalty units", substitute "600 penalty units".

(7) Page 20 (after line 16), at the end of Part 3, add:

22A Data breaches

(1) This section applies to an entity if:

(a) the entity is:

   (i) the Commonwealth, the Minister or the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, performing functions under this Act; or

   (ii) engaged by the Minister, on behalf of the Commonwealth, to perform services for or on behalf of the Commonwealth in connection with functions of the Commonwealth, the Minister or the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer under this Act; or

   (iii) any other person performing work relating to the purposes of the register; and

(b) the entity becomes aware that:

   (i) a person has, or may have, contravened this Act in a manner involving an unauthorised collection, recording, disclosure or other use of information about an individual; or

   (ii) an event has, or may have, occurred (whether or not involving a contravention of this Act) that compromises, may compromise, has compromised or may have compromised, the security or integrity of the register; or

   (iii) circumstances have, or may have, arisen (whether or not involving a contravention of this Act) that compromise, may compromise, have compromised or may have compromised, the security or integrity of the register; and

(c) the contravention, event or circumstances directly involved, may have involved or may involve the entity.

Note: This section applies to an entity when the entity becomes aware of a matter referred to in paragraph (b) regardless of when that matter arose or occurred or if the matter is ongoing at the time the entity became aware of the matter.

Notifying the Information Commissioner

(2) The entity must, as soon as practicable after becoming aware of the contravention, event or circumstances, notify the Information Commissioner of the contravention, event or circumstances.

Civil penalty: 600 penalty units.

(3) If an entity has given notice under subsection (2) on becoming aware that a contravention, event or circumstances may have occurred or arisen then, despite subsection (2), the entity need not give notice again on becoming aware that the contravention, event or circumstances has occurred or arisen.

Steps to be taken if contravention, event or circumstances may have occurred or arisen

(4) The entity must, as soon as practicable after becoming aware that the contravention, event or circumstances may have occurred or arisen, do the following things:

(a) so far as is reasonably practicable contain the potential contravention, event or circumstances;

(b) evaluate any risks that, if the contravention, event or circumstances has occurred or arisen, may be related to or arise out of the contravention, event or circumstances;

(c) if there is a reasonable likelihood that the contravention, event or circumstance has occurred or arisen and the effects of the contravention, event or circumstances might be serious for at least one individual—notify all individuals who would be affected.

Civil penalty: 600 penalty units.

Steps to be taken if contravention or event has occurred or the circumstances have arisen

(5) The entity must, as soon as practicable after becoming aware that the contravention or event has occurred or the circumstances have arisen, do the following things:

(a) so far as is reasonably practicable, contain the contravention, event or circumstances and undertake a preliminary assessment of the causes;

(b) evaluate any risks that may be related to or arise out of the contravention, event or circumstances;

(c) notify all affected individuals;

(d) if a significant number of individuals are affected—notify the general public;

(e) take steps to prevent or mitigate the effects of further contraventions, events or circumstances described in paragraphs (1) (b).

Civil penalty: 600 penalty units.

(6) If an entity has given notice under paragraph (4) (c), then despite paragraph (5) (c), the entity need not give notice under paragraph (5) (c).

(8) Page 20, after Part 3, insert:

Part 3A—Interaction with the Privacy Act 1988

22B Contravention of this Act is an interference with privacy

(1) An act or practice that contravenes this Act in connection with personal information or key informationabout an individual included on the register is taken to be:

(a) for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988, an interference with the privacy of the individual; and

(b) covered by section 13 of that Act.

(2) The respondent to a complaint under the Privacy Act 1988 about an act or practice, other than an act or practice of an agency or organisation, is the individual who engaged in the act or practice.

(3) In addition to the Information Commissioner's functions under the Privacy Act 1988, the Information Commissioner has the following functions in relation to the register:

(a) to investigate an act or practice that may be an interference with the privacy of an individual under subsection (1) and, if the Information Commissioner considers it appropriate to do so, to attempt by conciliation to effect a settlement of the matters that gave rise to the investigation;

(b) to do anything incidental or conducive to the performance of those functions.

(4) The Information Commissioner has power to do all things that are necessary or convenient to be done for or in connection with the performance of his or her functions under subsection (3).

Note: An act or practice that is an interference with privacy may be the subject of a complaint under section 36 of the Privacy Act 1988.

22C Information Commissioner may disclose details of investigations to the Minister

The Information Commissioner is authorised to disclose to the Minister any information or documents that relate to an investigation the Information Commissioner conducts because of the operation of section 22B, if the Information Commissioner is satisfied that to do so will enable the Minister to monitor or improve the operation or security of the register.

(9) Clause 26, page 22, after subclause (1), insert:

(2) Ownership of information included in the register or otherwise obtained under, or in accordance with, this Act is retained by the Commonwealth despite any agreement under subsection (1).

I understand that the government has its own amendments which largely support Labor's amendments. I look forward to the government actually supporting these amendments, but I suspect not. Again, these are all improvements to the bill that have occurred through Labor's intervention to make sure the Senate had proper scrutiny of these bills.

When we raised concerns about data breaches, they said I was engaging in some hysterical tirade. Apart from the nature of the gendered language that imbues, I have to say that the government now has, embarrassingly, a bit of egg on its face. It now has to come into this place—or it will do shortly—and move substantial amendments to this bill, which go to the heart of data protection. In the amendments we are moving today we believe very firmly that, when there are breaches of data, the individuals who are affected by those breaches of data need to be informed about them. You could get no more sensitive data than is in this bill: your Pap smear results; your bowel screening cancer results; your Medicare item number usage when it comes to cancer testing, cancer screening and cancer treatment. Or perhaps you are a transgender individual; or you may have had some other issues in relation to sexually transmitted diseases. You could not get more sensitive data. We accept that the government wants the Privacy Commissioner to decide whether to disclose that data that has been breached to the individual. We believe that you should, but it should be occur automatically.

We do not believe that the penalties in this bill or in the government's amendments go far enough. We have recently seen a massive breach of healthcare data where the Department of Health put Medicare item number data up on myGov. The way this government handled it was frankly appalling. Some 16 days after they were notified of the breach, on the floor of the Royal College of General Practitioners conference, the minister goes to all of the GP providers—some of whom potentially had had their provider numbers breached by the downloading of this data—and says: 'I'm really sorry about it and 16 days later we're going to inform you. We haven't informed the individual providers, the individual GPs who may have had that data breached. We'll do an investigation. We're going to try and close a loophole in the law.' It was not good enough. The doctors themselves have to inform their patients if there has been a breach of their privacy, but the government itself took 16 or 17 days to basically inform GPs that their data may have been breached. We think there needs to be mandatory data breach reporting. We have actually tried to get the government to do that in the previous parliament. We really think they need to move on it.

When it comes to the penalties, particularly given that the government signed a contract with a for-profit provider four days before the election, they are miniscule in this bill—$21,000 for a breach of data for a for-profit organisation like Telstra is simply not good enough. So the amendments that we are moving say very clearly that there needs to be higher penalty units within the bill itself and they should not deferred by seeking reparation through the Privacy Act.

We actually think they need to be within this bill itself.

We understand that the government has come some way to accepting some of Labor's amendments. But it has had, literally, the government's own body—its own body—having to inform it that it has some problems with this bill. We have through the Senate process managed to get the government to come part way, but again that we are moving these amendments here this afternoon because we do not think the government amendments go far enough.

As I said, penalty units of $21,600 when you come to a for-profit provider are simply not enough to discourage the potential misuse of this data—this highly sensitive data. I think, again, that when it comes to breaches of data the government has not protected individuals enough—not within its own legislation. It is all very well and good to inform the Privacy Commissioner that you have breached. We have seen that the government has form on this, with the recent health data breach, and we simply think that individuals have a right to know if this data has got into the public domain. If it has got into the public domain it should not be that the first time individuals know about it is when they read about it on the front page of a newspaper. I commend the amendments to the House.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Sport and Minister for Health and Aged Care) (18:24): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (12) on sheet HE125, as circulated, together.

Leave granted.

Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Sport and Minister for Health and Aged Care) (18:29): by leave—I move government amendments (1) to (12):

(1) Clause 4, page 3 (after line 20), after the definition of commercial‑in‑confidence, insert:

contracted service provider has the meaning given by subsection 22A(10).

[data breaches]

(2) Clause 4, page 6 (lines 1 and 2), omit the definition of prescribed body.

[prescribed body]

(3) Clause 11, page 9 (line 25), at the end of paragraph (e), add "associated with a designated cancer".

[claims information]

(4) Clause 12, page 11 (line 6), omit "cancer;", substitute "cancer.".

[purposes of the register]

(5) Clause 12, page 11 (line 7), omit paragraph (1) (o).

[purposes of the register]

(6) Clause 17, page 17 (line 15), omit subparagraph (3) (a) (iv).

[prescribed body]

(7) Clause 17, page 18 (after line 36), at the end of the clause, add:

(5) Collection, recording, disclosure or use of personal information for the purposes of research of a kind to which guidelines approved under section 95 or 95A of the Privacy Act 1988 relate is authorised under paragraph (3) (a) or (f) only if the collection, recording, use or disclosure is in accordance with the guidelines.

[research guidelines]

(8) Page 20 (after line 16), at the end of Part 3, add:

22A Data breaches

Notification of contraventions and possible contraventions

(1) If the Secretary becomes aware (otherwise than because of a notice under subsection (2)) that a person has, or may have, contravened section 18 in a manner involving an unauthorised recording, use or disclosure of personal information included in the register, the Secretary must, as soon as practicable, notify the Information Commissioner.

Note: This subsection applies when the Secretary becomes aware of the contravention or possible contravention, regardless of when it occurred or whether it is ongoing.

(2) If a contracted service provider or a former contracted service provider becomes aware that a person has, or may have, contravened section 18 in a manner involving an unauthorised recording, use or disclosure of personal information included in the register, the contracted service provider or former contracted service provider must, as soon as practicable, notify:

(a) the Secretary; and

(b) the Information Commissioner.

Note: This subsection applies when the contracted service provider or former contracted service provider becomes aware of the contravention or possible contravention, regardless of when it occurred or whether it is ongoing.

Civil penalty: 100 penalty units.

(3) A notice given under subsection (1) or (2) must set out the following:

(a) a description of the contravention that has occurred or may have occurred;

(b) the kind or kinds of information concerned;

(c) if the notice is given under subsection (2)—the identity and contact details of the contracted service provider or former contracted service provider.

Handling possible contraventions

(4) If the Secretary, or a contracted service provider or former contracted service provider, becomes aware that a person may have contravened section 18 in a manner involving an unauthorised recording, use or disclosure of personal information included in the register, the Secretary, or the contracted service provider or former contracted service provider, must do the following:

(a) so far as is reasonably practicable, contain the possible contravention;

(b) evaluate any risks that, if the contravention has occurred, may be related to or arise out of the contravention;

(c) if there is a reasonable likelihood that the contravention has occurred and the effects of the contravention might be serious for at least one individual whose details are included in the register:

   (i) in the case of the Secretary—consult the Information Commissioner about notifying individuals who may be affected; or

   (ii) in the case of a contracted service provider or former contracted service provider—ask the Secretary to consult the Information Commissioner about notifying individuals who may be affected.

Note: This subsection applies when the Secretary, contracted service provider or former contracted service provider becomes aware of the possible contravention, regardless of when it occurred or whether it is ongoing.

Handling contraventions

(5) If the Secretary, or a contracted service provider or former contracted service provider, becomes aware that a person has contravened section 18 in a manner involving an unauthorised recording, use or disclosure of personal information included in the register, the Secretary, or the contracted service provider or former contracted service provider, must do the following:

(a) so far as is reasonably practicable, contain the contravention and undertake a preliminary assessment of the causes;

(b) evaluate any risks that may be related to or arise out of the contravention;

(c) in the case of the Secretary—consult the Information Commissioner about notifying individuals who may be affected;

(d) in the case of a contracted service provider or former contracted service provider—ask the Secretary to consult the Information Commissioner about notifying individuals who may be affected;

(e) take steps to prevent or mitigate the effects of further contraventions.

Note: This subsection applies when the Secretary, contracted service provider or former contracted service provider becomes aware of the contravention, regardless of when it occurred or whether it is ongoing.

Secretary ' s duty

(6) The Secretary must comply with a request under subparagraph (4) (c) (ii) or paragraph (5) (d).

No need to report or consult if already done

(7) A person is not required to comply with subsection (1) or (2) in relation to a contravention that has occurred if the person has already given notice under that subsection that the contravention may have occurred.

(8) A person is not required to comply with paragraph (5) (c) or (d) in relation to a contravention if the person has already consulted, or asked the Secretary to consult, the Information Commissioner under paragraph (4) (c) in relation to the contravention.

(9) A contracted service provider or former contracted service provider is not required to comply with subsection (2), subparagraph (4) (c) (ii) or paragraph (5) (d) in relation to a contravention that has, or may have, occurred if another person has already:

(a) given notice in relation to the contravention under subsection (1) or (2); or

(b) consulted, or asked the Secretary to consult, the Information Commissioner in relation to the contravention under paragraph (4) (c) or (5) (c) or (d).

Contracted service providers

(10) In this Act:

contracted service provider means a person who:

(a) is engaged under an agreement referred to in section 26; and

(b) obtains protected information in the course of performing services under the agreement.

[data breaches]

(9) Page 20, at the end of Part 3 (after proposed clause 22A), add:

22B Contravention is an interference with privacy

(1) An act or practice that contravenes section 18 or subsection 22A(1), (2), (4), (5) or (6) is taken to be:

(a) for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988, an interference with the privacy of an individual; and

(b) covered by section 13 of that Act.

(2) The respondent to a complaint under the Privacy Act 1988 about an act or practice, other than an act or practice of an agency or organisation, is the person who engaged in the act or practice.

(3) In addition to the Information Commissioner's functions under the Privacy Act 1988, the Information Commissioner has the following functions in relation to the register:

(a) to investigate an act or practice that may be an interference with the privacy of an individual under subsection (1) and, if the Information Commissioner considers it appropriate to do so, to attempt by conciliation to effect a settlement of the matters that gave rise to the investigation;

(b) to do anything incidental or conducive to the performance of those functions.

(4) The Information Commissioner has power to do all things that are necessary or convenient to be done for or in connection with the performance of his or her functions under subsection (3).

Note: An act or practice that is an interference with privacy may be the subject of a complaint under section 36 of the Privacy Act 1988.

[interference with privacy]

(10) Page 20, at the end of Part 3 (after proposed clause 22B), add:

22C Information Commissioner may disclose details of investigations to the Secretary

The Information Commissioner is authorised to disclose to the Secretary any information or documents that relate to an investigation the Information Commissioner conducts because of the operation of section 22B, if the Information Commissioner is satisfied that to do so will enable the Commonwealth to monitor or improve the operation or security of the register.

[interference with privacy]

(11) Clause 27, page 23 (lines 1 to 3), omit subclause (2), substitute:

(2) The Secretary may, in writing, delegate his or her functions or powers under:

(a) paragraph 17(3) (g) (about disclosing information); or

(b) section 22A (about data breaches);

to an SES employee, or an acting SES employee, in the Department.

[data breaches]

(12) Clause 28, page 23 (after line 13), after subclause (1), insert:

(1A) Before making rules for the purposes of:

(a) paragraph (l) of the definition of key information in section 4; or

(b) paragraph 11(g);

the Minister must consult the Information Commissioner in relation to matters that relate to the privacy functions (within the meaning of the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010) and have regard to any submissions made by the Information Commissioner because of that consultation.

[consultation with Information Commissioner]

As members know, the need for these bills arose from the 2015-16 federal budget announcement to establish a National Cancer Screening Register aimed at saving more lives through increased detection, treatment and prevention of some of the country's biggest killers. The National Cancer Screening Register Bill provides for the establishment of the register and authorises the collection, use and disclosure of information for the purposes of the register and certain other purposes. It will allow Medicare enrolment and claims data and healthcare identifiers for individuals and healthcare providers to be collected by the register for the initial system build as well as on an ongoing basis.

The Turnbull government is serious about increasing cancer screening rates in the fight against cancers, as well as to improve survival rates. This legislation is critical for this government priority. These bills will serve to benefit the health of Australians through more efficient cervical and bowel screening pathways made possible by the establishment of a national register. The bills will facilitate monitoring of the effectiveness, quality and safety of screening and diagnoses associated with bowel cancer and cervical cancer. They will assist general practitioners and healthcare providers in their clinical decision making and contribute to cancer detection, treatment and prevention. They are very important.

I have proposed some changes to the National Cancer Screening Register Bill to provide clarity in some of its provisions, as discussed with the Office of The Australian Information Commissioner. These include a new provision requiring the contracted service provider to notify data breaches to the secretary of my department and to the Information Commissioner, and for the secretary of my department to notify data breaches to the Information Commissioner and for certain actions to be taken in relation to data breaches. These amendments will achieve an appropriate balance between protecting privacy and retaining the flexibility required to deliver these world-class screening programs.

The protection of personal information held in the register is of paramount importance. I have proposed to make unauthorised recording, use or disclosure of personal information in the register, or a contravention of the requirement to notify data breaches, an interference with privacy for the purpose of the Privacy Act 1988. Although the department or affected individuals would have recourse to engage the Information Commissioner in any matter related to a privacy breach, this amendment would make it explicitly clear that the Information Commissioner could undertake an investigation as required.

The opposition has proposed amendments to the legislation to limit operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or government agency. Successive governments have successfully partnered with the private sector to deliver many programs. This amendment would be an extraordinary limitation on government's ability to continue with these partnerships, and it would send a concerning message to the private sector.

Changes to the National Cervical Cancer Screening Program from 1 May 2017 will introduce a more effective cervical cancer test, the human papillomavirus test, to replace the two-yearly Pap test. Cervical cancer claims the lives of 250 women a year, despite being one of the most preventable cancers.

Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in Australia, with about 4,000 Australians dying each year. The expanded National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will roll out a free, at-home bowel cancer screening kit to Australians aged 50 to 74 years every two years by 2020.

I know that the heart of this legislation, the principles and the creation of the register, is not disagreed by the opposition, and I appreciate that. Quite frankly, it is a no-brainer that this legislation get passed and that this register come into operation. Everyone who appeared before the Senate committee inquiry initiated by the opposition said those things. They expressed their views and concerns, as they should, about privacy, and sought those reassurances which I believe my department has provided but which I am happy to strengthen with these amendments that I am moving. While all of those messages took place at the Senate inquiry, the very strong view of all those who appeared before it was that we need this legislation passed. We need the register in place because the current system is not geared to take on the five-yearly HPV test for cervical cancer.

It is quite clear that this legislation, this register, will save women's lives, and I look forward to its smooth passage through the other place. I commend my amendments to the House.

Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (18:30): I want to be very clear about what has actually just happened here. Labor do support the establishment of a National Cancer Screening Register—we have said that from the start—but, only a scant few weeks after the government introduced its legislation, the government has had to move 12 amendments to its own legislation because we have pointed out, through the Senate, as we should do, holes in this legislation. That is what this parliament is designed to do.

When we referred these bills to a Senate inquiry, what did this minister say? It was that, 'Labor is being hysterical. There is a hysterical tirade from Labor about these bills.' What we have just seen is the minister having to come to the dispatch box and say, 'I did get it wrong. We rushed this legislation. We have not thought about this properly, and I have now had to move amendments to my own legislation.' Perhaps it would be better, Minister Ley, if you actually talked to us in the first place before you introduced legislation. We can tell you what our issues are going to be. We are going to have debates about you deciding that something should be contracted in this way, because, frankly, it is not the best process when we have to amend and force the government to actually come to this dispatch box and amend its own legislation in this way. The Department of Health might have briefed us about what they were planning to do, but it is not until you get into the detail that you get an opportunity to say, 'There are some problems here.' That is what the Senate inquiry did.

We will support these amendments. We do not want to hold up this legislation. We know that this is a problem of the government's own making. They took the decision to sign a contract with Telstra in the dying days of the last government. They took that decision. Why? We do not know. We suspect it was something to do with an election announcement that they backed away from. This government took that decision. They have now had to retrospectively introduce legislation to allow that to happen. It is a disgrace, frankly, that they signed a contract before this parliament had passed legislation to establish the register of which the contract was the subject.

We are seeing a complete shambles when it comes to introducing health law in this country, an inability to actually get the legislation right in the first place, leaving it to the last minute—this is something that came, from memory, out of the 2015 budget; it was in not the 2016 budget that they wanted to establish an National Cancer Screen Register—and then having to amend their own legislation on the floor of the chamber.

We are happy, through this process, that we have improved these bills, apart from the two areas that I mentioned in our amendments. We do believe very firmly that there should be mandatory data breach reporting not just to the Privacy Commissioner but to the individuals affected, particularly when you look at the information that is there. Imagine if that information got into the public domain and you as in individual did not know about it. Imagine if that happened. Recently, with the data breach, there were 16 to 17 days from notification of the breach to the Department of Health—individuals still do not know if their data has been breached or not—before the minister reported it to the general practice sector. It is simply not good enough. We also absolutely contend that the penalties are still not good enough. As I said, we will support these amendments, but we will seek to continue to prosecute our case in the other place.

I particularly want to reiterate the issue that this is really a very large debate about what the role of the for-profit sector is in the delivery of government services. It is a very big debate and a very big decision that this government has made, for the first time, to give a for-profit provider a national cancer screening register. As far as I am aware, this is the first time a for-profit telecommunications company has had control of such a register. It is a big call that the government has made. We will be looking, with great interest, at the capacity of Telstra to actually deliver on its contractual promise on the delivery date it has promised. We are hearing already that there are some major problems around that. That has nothing to do with the passage of legislation; it has to do with the capacity of the organisation. This is something that we will continue to prosecute because this government, at every single opportunity, has given preference to the private sector when it comes to Medicare. It has wanted to privatise Medicare, and this is just an example of what is to come.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne—Assistant Minister for Rural Health) (18:37): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (18:38): Labor wants to achieve marriage equality in the fastest, least expensive, least harmful way possible. That is why Labor is calling for a free vote in parliament. That is why we will oppose this ill-conceived, ill-thought out plebiscite. Fundamentally, the inspiration of the proposed plebiscite by the government is, at its core, a delaying tactic, a divisive tactic, and Labor believes instead in immediate action.

This plebiscite is a gross abdication of responsibility and we believe parliament should simply do its job. The parliamentarians should do what they are paid to do, which is debate and vote on the laws of this country. In the past weeks and months my colleagues and I have taken the time to meet with community leaders, to listen to LGBTIQ Australians and their families as well as religious leaders. We have consulted with mental-health experts and social workers. What struck me, first and foremost, was how often the persons concerned, the advocates of marriage equality, how often these advocates' first concern was for others—the parents who are frustrated that the child they love as deeply as one of us, any of us, loves our son or daughter is still denied equality.

Proud dads, like Geoff Thomas—who the member for Sydney introduced me to—told us of how, when he found out that his son was gay, he said, 'The thing that hit me the most was that after having fought in Vietnam—my country sent me off to fight for a democracy that I believed in—I discovered that my son was not extended the same dignity, respect and equality before the law, in his own country, as other Australians.' The challenge that he laid down to all of us in this parliament is he just asked us to get on with it. He said, 'Do the right thing by my son and other people's sons and daughters. Do the job you are elected to do.' Well, Geoff, the Labor Party will do the job that we were elected to do. We want to get on with it. We will not let you down.

We heard from older Australians who are gay. They remember how tough it was for them growing up. They appreciate how hard it was dealing with previous generations' anti-gay homophobic attitudes, the penalties, the criminalisation. They said to me, very clearly, they do not wish to see a new generation bear the brunt of public judgement. It was a fantastic loving couple that had been together for 17 years. They said they would rather wait for parliament to do its job than inflict a 'no' campaign on gay teenagers.

Then, there are all those marvellous young LGBTI Australians. They are resilient, confident, intelligent people but cognisant and anxious of the prejudice that would be dredged up. We met with same-sex couples with children, wondering how they will protect their child from the harm and the hatred unleashed by the worst elements of the anti-marriage-equality advertising. One mum, Simone, baby on her knee, repeated some of the vicious, awful things that had been said to her and her partner in the past. As she was doing so, she put her hands over her child's ears. But if this legislation is passed, there are not enough hands to put over enough children's ears to save them from the dreadful debate which no conservative government can guarantee will not occur.

That is what we are doing here. We are going to make sure that the children in these relationships do not have to put up with the inevitable abuse, the heightened abuse, merely because the government will not go down the fastest, least expensive, least harmful path. Now it is true, in 2013, after I had already voted for marriage equality in the parliament, I told a Christian forum I was relaxed about a plebiscite. And the Prime Minister is desperate to use that as a distraction, with no sense of irony. My preferred position is to have a vote in parliament. But, unlike the Prime Minister, I have not changed my mind or firmed up my opinion because of some Faustian bargain or at the instruction of anti-marriage-equality advocates.

The people of Australia are the ones who have educated us and they have certainly reinforced my view. What do you say to people who will be targeted by a 'no' campaign? How do you seriously and rationally and reasonably explain to one group of our fellow citizens that they have to submit their relationship to a $200 million taxpayer funded opinion poll whose result members of the government have already confirmed that they will ignore? Why should some Australians' special relationships be subject to a new and separate legal process that has never been inflicted on any other group on any other question?

Why do gay Australians have to submit and metaphorically knock on the doors of 15 million of their fellow Australians to get permission to get married? No-one else has had to do that, so why on Earth are we asking some Australians to go through a more onerous process than that we ask of all Australians? How do we compel 15 million Australians to vote—and fine them if they do not vote—when members of the government will not be compelled to respect the outcome? I have to ask why, after so many backflips and backdowns, is this plebiscite the only election promise that the Prime Minister and the Liberal-National coalition are determined to keep?

Make no mistake: this plebiscite is not about marriage equality. It is about two things and two things only: Tony Abbott's ideology and Malcolm Turnbull's job security. Equality for minorities should not be conditional on the approval of majorities. You do not have an opinion poll on rights. That is why they are called rights. Imposing this plebiscite would not just be a waste of money or a failure of leadership; I think it would be a failure of basic decency. It is a glaring contradiction of our national ideal of a fair go for all.

When he introduced this legislation a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister said of its $200 million cost, 'What price democracy?' But the price of this plebiscite goes far beyond the time, the money and the resources to run a national opinion poll. It stretches further than the $7.5 million in the funding for the 'no' campaign—government money, the money of taxpayers, being spent to argue against the rights of Australians. It is worth remembering that in the 1967 referendum the Liberal government then did not provide any dollars to the 'no' case. This proposition of moral relativism—the assumption that 'yes' and 'no' are equally weighted arguments—belies the nature of the arguments against marriage equality.

The true cost of this plebiscite cannot be counted on a spreadsheet alone; it is a toll that will be borne by same-sex couples being told that their precious children are members of a new stolen generation. I have met and heard from—as have all my colleagues gathered here—literally thousands of parents who are worried about people who will not be able to advocate for themselves: children watching government funded ads which reject their parents' love and tell them that it is not normal and that the family they live in is not wanted or valued. Inevitably these same hateful slogans will be thrown back at them in the schoolyard or slapped across their Facebook. Why do some Australian children have to watch their parents' relationship voted on by everyone else? It is about gay teenagers yet to come out, fearful of rejection, being told that there is something wrong with who they are and how they feel.

The cost of this plebiscite is measured in the arrogance of the coded language that implies that some families are more equal than others, that some kinds of love count for more than others. Every MP should be honest and report to the House the vile homophobia they have received in their emails—the crazy arguments treating some Australians as different from others. We all know it, and every MP receives this material, signed or unsigned. What I cannot understand is why government MPs, having received this material, pretend that this is a debate without consequences—that this is a debate and an opinion poll without victims and without the potential for great harm.

I absolutely respect freedom of worship and freedom of religious expression. I understand that some good people of sincere faith do not support marriage equality as they see it as conflicting with their faith. Do I think everyone who is opposed to marriage equality is homophobic? No, of course not. But do I believe that homophobic hate will be more widespread as a result of this debate? Yes, I do. No-one truly believes that this debate will be civil. The Prime Minister understands this. Despite his best intentions and the best intentions of some people arguing for the plebiscite, they cannot give a guarantee that this will be a civil debate, and they know that it will not be. I do not understand the nature of a leadership which says that the harm to some people is a price worth paying for a political deal in the Liberal party room.

When that updated bill and information—which was more about carving out exemptions to please the hard Right than achieving equality under the law—was released at 11 pm last night, we saw that they cannot guarantee this respect. We know that when you release that sort of information at 11 pm the night before this bill is due to come back on, it smells like a deal with the hard Right. So when the Prime Minister asks us 'What price democracy?' demonising loving couples, victimising the children of loving couples and inflicting emotional torment on young and not-so-young people is not a price that Labor is willing to pay on behalf of the coalition.

I have been criticised by some for drawing the link between this plebiscite and the concerns about the mental health of LGBTI Australians. I say to those members, some of whom are here in the chamber, I make no apologies for bringing attention to this most serious issue, especially when the evidence is so overwhelming. A recent study conducted by the Young and Well institute found that 16 per cent of young Australians who are gay had attempted suicide; a third had harmed themselves; and more than four in 10 had thought about self-harm or suicide, a rate six times greater than that of heterosexual Australians of the same age.

Up to two out of every three of these young Australians have been bullied at school, at work or on the sporting field about their sexual orientation.

Last week, the member for the Sydney and I met with Professor Patrick McGorry and other mental health experts to discuss the mental health consequences of a plebiscite. He told us that LGBTIQ people have a five-times increased risk of suicide, and, as he said, this is caused by discrimination and homophobia. He went on to say that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with people in the LGBTIQ community in terms of mental health or mental illness, but their experiences cause this increased risk. The reason Professor McGorry, like so many other mental health experts, opposes the plebiscite is that, as he said:

We know when these campaigns are held in the public domain like in the US and in Ireland, the risk goes up.

What is it about the voice of practitioners and experts that the government refuses to hear? What is it about the evidence that this government chooses to ignore? What is it about this plebiscite that means any price is worth paying, according to the government?

Members of the church also understand that the plebiscite will be a deeply divisive experience. The Anglican Bishop of Wangaratta, John Parkes, wrote to the Prime Minister and I last month warning:

… there are those who will engage in harmful, derogatory and damaging discourse, dividing communities and causing deep pain to our LGBTI brothers and sisters.

Indeed, following the Irish referendum, when there was no alternative to a national vote—please do not give us the Irish referendum as the justification for the plebiscite. There was no choice in Ireland; there is a choice here. And, of course, in Ireland, though marriage equality succeeded and our TV screens were full of all of those remarkable images, a recent survey has found that just 23 per cent of LGBTI Irish people would be prepared to endure that vote again—only 23 per cent would want to have that experience again.

What is it about the evidence, the experience, that this government wilfully ignores in favour of a suboptimal, painful approach. The most powerful argument against the Prime Minister's plebiscite is found in the streets of the suburbs and towns of Australia. The most powerful argument against this plebiscite is LGBTI Australians living their lives, raising children, paying taxes, building communities, caring for our elderly, teaching in our schools, serving in our defence forces and sitting in this parliament—fellow Australians who do everything this nation asks of them.

Generation by generation they have worked to overturn the discrimination that their own country levelled against them. Fifty years ago homosexuality was a criminal offence in every Australian state and territory. We did not need a plebiscite to recognise that. Thirty years ago—

Mr Tim Wilson: The Liberals fixed it.

Mr SHORTEN: Well, be the Liberals you once were, sir. Thirty years ago gay people were barred from serving in the Defence Force. We did not need a plebiscite to fix that. As recently as eight years ago same sex couples were still subject to more than 80 different forms of legal and financial discrimination. Labor fixed that, and the Liberals fixed over matters—inch by inch, clause by clause the laws have been overturned. Change has been hard-fought, had-argued and hard-won.

Change has come because on the floor of this parliament MPs from both sides summoned the courage and the basic human decency to extend equality and not diminish it, to end discrimination and not entrench it. Now, in this 45th Parliament, it is our turn. It is our turn to face up to the test that previous parliaments and previous political generations have answered. It is our turn to answer this question: can we respect the national mood and simply get on with a free vote on marriage equality? Can we prove that we are big enough? Can we prove that we are good enough? Can we prove that we are generous enough? Can we prove that we understand that families come in all shapes and sizes and that families do not need the judgement of conservative Liberal politicians or opinion polls? What they actually need is just to be allowed to get on with it, and that is what they expect from us—to get on with it!

Are we able to remove the last piece of discrimination against LGBTI people from our nation's laws? Our predecessors have done this without resort to plebiscite. When we have made so much progress, so hard-fought, why is this too hard for the parliament to do? Why did those who seek to have a plebiscite abdicate their responsibility? Why did they get elected if it is not to the job they were elected to do? Can we find it in ourselves to say to our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters and our friends and neighbours that you deserve the right to marry a person you love?

All of us who are called to this place have a tremendous privilege, and I know all who are here understand that. The privileges is to serve the people of Australia as their representatives. In this chamber we rise to speak on their behalf. We can argue with each other about which laws suit people and which do not, but we are all motivated with our views about laws and votes that will benefit Australians. We owe Australian's not just our industry but our judgement.

We have before us now the opportunity to change a law that does not describe the generous, inclusive, egalitarian nation that we love. There will come a time, even if it is not right now, that when we pass a bill for marriage equality in this country people will ask after that why it took so long. And there will come a time in the future, much as we look back at discriminatory laws in the past, and ask why they did not change it then. Why did it take so long? But what we on our side will not do is squib the challenge. The parliament and the laws we want to have should be a reflection of what we want people who watch Australia understand to be our values.

Our laws should be a mirror in which we can teach our children the reflection of who we think we are as a country. We are lucky to have this opportunity to make Australia a more inclusive and more open and more generous nation. We are lucky to have this opportunity. Why on earth would people not want to take the opportunity to conduct ourselves in the manner in which parliaments have done in Australia for 100 years? Why not allow people a measure of happiness in the lives of a great number of our fellow Australians? Why not understand that marriage equality is not a responsibility that we should delegate? It is not a job we can contract out. You cannot contract out your conscience to an opinion poll. You cannot contract out our responsibility to our fellow Australians. That is the complete opposite of representative democracy. This argument that marriage equality is in a special category, that marriage laws are in a special category and therefore create special circumstances—we don't buy that.

We have amended the Marriage Act on 20 occasions. There was no need for a plebiscite on any one of those. And we have dealt with complex issues in this parliament which go to morality. I would have thought that a chance to serve the people, a chance for parliament to prove its worth, to fulfil its purpose, a chance to reflect the values of our people to make a country a better place, a free vote in the parliament which saves our taxpayers $200 million and saves our country from a divisive argument—all around the world citizens do not feel partners with their politicians in the democratic purpose. We have a chance to be partners with them—not to follow them, but to lead them, to listen to their voice, as we do. We have a chance to say to our fellow Australians that the democratic system is not broken, that we cannot make hard decisions in this place anymore. It is the failure of decision-making and the willingness to put a group of our fellow Australians down a path of lawmaking that we do not ask of anyone else. That is the failure here.

A free vote on marriage equality means that we could be attending the spring weddings of people who have waited long enough. A free vote is the cheapest, the fastest and the least-harmful way. That is why I move, as a second reading amendment:

That all the words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to legislate for marriage equality and that the House calls on the Government to afford all members of parliament a free vote.”

Let's just get on with it. Let's make marriage equality a reality.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Is the amendment seconded?