Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 5965:

(1)    Government amendments (1) to (4), sheet CN232, after “medical practitioners”, insert “or one or more health services”.

This amendment seeks to amend the government’s amendment. It seeks to put in place the ability for midwives to seek collaborative arrangements with other medical services, not just with a medical practitioner. This will widen the scope for midwives—the people with whom midwives could seek to have collaborative arrangements. As I articulated earlier, we are very concerned that the government’s amendment, as it stands, simply puts a power of veto in the hands of the medical profession, despite what the government says. Our amendment seeks to address that by widening the scope.

We are not saying no to collaborate arrangements and, as I articulated very clearly last night, the Greens strongly support collaborative practice and collaborative arrangements. In fact, it is part of the requirements for a midwife. Those requirements are already in place. This is the government bowing to pressure from organisations such as the AMA who say, ‘You need to put a medical practitioner in charge.’ That, essentially, is what this does. The government is clearly bowing to pressure from a sustained campaign by the medical profession who say, ‘We want control over midwives and, in particular, we want to make it as hard as possible to have a homebirth.’

As I said, there is plenty of media out there to clearly show the medical profession’s agenda. This is about ideology. This is about whether you support a woman’s right to choose a homebirth and to choose the location of birth. The location should not make a difference to the provision of midwife services but, unfortunately, in this country it does. That is what this government amendment is about. The government is bowing to pressure from the AMA. It is not good enough. It is not what the women of Australia want. That is very clear from the number of emails, letters and phone calls we have received. The women of Australia and the families of Australia want the right to choose a homebirth and the right to choose the location of birth, whether that be in a totally clinical environment, in a birthing suite or at home. This legislation takes another step along the road to making it as difficult as possible to have a midwife and a homebirth.

The Greens amendment is modest. Ideally, we would like to have seen the indemnity insurance scheme extended to the provision of homebirths or to the provision of indemnity insurance to midwives regardless of the location of birth. That did not get up in the second reading debate. We did not want to see the legislation go down because of it because overall the legislation is a step in the right direction, but the government’s amendment undermines that step in the right direction. So we have taken a step, but not the giant step which needs to be taken if we are properly to address the provision of maternity services in this country.

The Greens are moving this amendment to the government’s amendment to broaden the scope, enabling midwives to put in place collaborative arrangements. We, too, are disappointed that we have not seen the regulation on collaboration. We will be assessing it very clearly. We think that the regulations should have been available when we were discussing this legislation because, as per usual, so much of the legislation rides on the regulatory process. We think this is an important step, broadening out collaborative arrangements—who you can seek those collaborative arrangements with not being just limited to doctors.

We believe this is a very important amendment. If the government were truly supportive of choice for women, they would be supporting this important amendment. As I said, we will be watching the regulations. We also will be very carefully monitoring just what collaborative arrangements are put in place because the midwives and mothers will be on the phone straightaway when they are not able to access services for a homebirth. This issue is not resolved and, if the government think it is, they have another think coming because midwives and mothers of this country are deeply upset about the way homebirth services and support for homebirths have been undermined by this government.