Mr ANDREWS (4:01 PM) —I rise to speak on the Human Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. The government’s bill further merges the back-end support services and some customer areas for Medicare and Centrelink, locating both within the Department of Human Services. Essentially the bill will achieve its objectives by amending the Medicare Australia Act 1973 and the Commonwealth Services Delivery Agency Act 1997, commonly referred to as the Centrelink act, and, through these amendments, firstly, abolishing the statutory offices of Chief Executive Officer of Medicare Australia and Chief Executive Officer of Centrelink; secondly, creating the statutory offices of Chief Executive Medicare and Chief Executive Centrelink within the department; thirdly, abolishing Medicare Australia and Centrelink as statutory agencies; fourthly, providing for service related functions currently delivered by Medicare Australia and Centrelink in support of their chief executives to be delivered by employees of the Department of Human Services; and, finally, providing for new functions taken on by the Chief Executive Medicare and the Chief Executive Centrelink in the future to be delivered by employees of the Department of Human Services.

Under existing arrangements, Centrelink and Medicare services are delivered from different access points, although there has been a gradual integration of back-end services between Medicare and Centrelink in order to improve service efficiency. The amendments that would result from the successful passage of this bill would, firstly, bring in new defined terms of ‘Medicare programs’ and ‘Centrelink programs’ to replace the current secrecy provisions’ focus on agencies as the basis for regulating information sharing; and, secondly, clarify that, if more than one secrecy provision applies to the same information and any applicable secrecy provision permits the use, disclosure or recording of the information, the use, disclosure or recording is taken to be consistent with all of the applicable secrecy provisions. The bill does not amend the Privacy Act.

The bill also amends the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 to align the provisions for the appointment of the Child Support Registrar with the provisions of the appointment of the Chief Executive Centrelink and the Chief Executive Medicare and makes consequential amendments to a number of other acts that currently refer to the agencies or statutory authorities which will be abolished.

The amendments to formalise this new structure will be implemented from 1 July 2011. Transitional arrangements will be put in place to ensure that no disruption in customer service delivery occurs as a result of these changes.

The bill also amends investigative search and seizure provisions of part IID of the Medicare Australia Act. Many of the provisions in this part were modelled on earlier versions of the corresponding provisions in the Crimes Act 1914. Because there have been amendments to the Crimes Act over time, some of these provisions in the Medicare Australia Act are no longer aligned with the Crimes Act provisions. The main purpose of the proposed amendments is to bring these provisions into closer alignment with the Crimes Act provisions.

The issue of privacy was also raised in the course of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into this legislation. The bill also brings in amendments to clarify the operation of program secrecy provisions after the restructure to ensure these provisions operate in substantially the same way as they did prior to the restructure to protect against the sharing of customer data without customer consent. By integrating the portfolio into a single department of state, these reforms should increase efficiency and reduce the cost of service delivery, as well as increasing convenience for customers, who will be able to access both Centrelink and Medicare services in co-located offices as these are progressively rolled out.

Equitable, efficient and effective service delivery has always been a priority for the coalition. As a supporter of small government, streamlining operations and agencies into a single department is desirable. The merger of Centrelink and Medicare Australia will ultimately, hopefully, make it easier for clients of these agencies—that is, make it easier for ordinary Australians—to access the services they need and interface with the government in a more efficient and straightforward way.

I acknowledge the government’s proposed amendments to the bill, which at first glance appear to address some of the concerns raised by the Senate inquiry. Having received a briefing from departmental officials earlier today, I appreciate that briefing and the purport of the amendments. Whilst the coalition reserve their view pending any further advice we may receive about the amendments, it is not our intention to oppose the bill.