13th Sep 2016, 1:17 PM – Senate Business - Consideration of Legislation - National cancer screening bills

The majority voted against a motion to let the Senate deal with the national cancer screening bills now, instead of waiting until the next parliamentary session.

What does this mean?

Under parliamentary rules, a bill can't be discussed and debated in the same session that it is introduced. The reason for this is so that there is time to, for example, have the bills considered by committees. However, it is possible to exempt a bill from this rule and consider it straight away - as the Government tried to do here. But since they were unsuccessful, the bills can now be considered by a committee.

Why shouldn't these bills be dealt with right away?

ACT Senator Katy Gallagher explained why the Labor Party voted against this motion (and so didn't support speeding up consideration of the bill):

In principle, Labor does support the establishment of the National Cancer Screening Register ... However, the arrangements proposed within the bill ... would see the federal government for the first time entering into a commercial agreement with a for-profit company to administer a cancer screening initiative of this scope and importance.

As this is uncharted territory for the departments and agencies involved, and as the bill goes to something as vital as the health and wellbeing of Australians, it deserves the fullest attention and scrutiny of our parliamentary processes. Labor's concerns go to key elements of the bill. These include reservations about the impact of the bill on individual privacy, the adequacy of the security arrangements for extremely sensitive health information, and the nature and appropriateness of the commercial relationship entered into by the government with Telstra Health.

Issues such as these, I think, self-evidently warrant further consideration by this parliament and this chamber. ... I urge the Senate to oppose exemption of these bills from the cut-off and support further consideration of them by the legislation committee.

What are the national cancer bills?

The two bills are the:

• National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016
• National Cancer Screening Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2016

Read more about them in the bills digest.

Rebellion

Western Australian Senator Rod Culleton rebelled against his party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, to vote in support of this motion. That is, he supported speeding up consideration of this bill while the rest of his Party voted against it. Rebellions like this are increasingly uncommon in the Australian Parliament.

Motion text

The question now is that the national cancer screening bills be exempt from the cut-off.