Tuesday, 4 August 2020 Legislative Assembly- PROOF Page 1 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Tuesday, 4 August 2020 The Speaker (The Hon. Jonathan Richard O'Dea) took the chair at 12:00. The Speaker read the prayer and acknowledgement of country. [Notices of motions given.] Bills GAS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MEDICAL GAS SYSTEMS) BILL 2020 First Reading Bill introduced on motion by Mr Kevin Anderson, read a first time and printed. Second Reading Speech Mr KEVIN ANDERSON (Tamworth—Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation) (12:16:12): I move: That this bill be now read a second time. I am proud to introduce the Gas Legislation Amendment (Medical Gas Systems) Bill 2020. The bill delivers on the New South Wales Government's promise to introduce a robust and effective licensing regulatory system for persons who carry out medical gas work. As I said on 18 June on behalf of the Government in opposing the Hon. Mark Buttigieg's private member's bill, nobody wants to see a tragedy repeated like the one we saw at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital. As I undertook then, the Government has taken the steps necessary to provide a strong, robust licensing framework for those persons installing and working on medical gases in New South Wales. To the families of John Ghanem and Amelia Khan, on behalf of the Government I repeat my commitment that we are taking action to ensure no other families will have to endure as they have. The bill forms a key part of the Government's response to licensed work for medical gases that are supplied in medical facilities in New South Wales. Medical facilities, such as public and private hospitals, day surgery practices and dental practices, are places where the safety of patients is vital, including in the administration of medical gases. There are approximately 214 private hospitals, 202 public hospitals, 105 day hospitals and in-vitro fertilisation [IVF] clinics, 7,247 dentists and 722 medical centres in New South Wales. They will all come within the ambit of this legislation. We recognise that these reforms will impact on a wide variety of medical facilities and industry operators. For this reason the Government has worked in partnership with industry and other key stakeholders in developing the regulatory and licensing scheme. As I said in June, the object of the Government's bill is safety first. The bill will extend the strong compliance and enforcement powers of the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act 2017 to medical gas work, while amending the Home Building Act 1989 to establish two new licensing categories of specialist work. One category will deal with medical gasfitting work and the other with medical gas technician work. While I understand that other jurisdictions have similar provisions to regulate medical gasfitting work, those provisions do not focus specifically on the conduct of persons engaged with the commissioning of medical gas installations. In most jurisdictions, people who undertake medical gas commissioning work are largely regulated by the companies that offer commissioning services. Under the robust regulatory framework proposed in the bill, all persons in New South Wales who test, certify, verify and commission a medical gas system will need to be licensed or hold a certificate under the Home Building Act. The final testing before use and the servicing of a medical gas system are just as important as the work required to install it. This is because these medical gas technicians can be required at short notice to service the systems and respond to alarm systems to ensure that they are operating effectively. These persons are not plumbers but are trained by gas suppliers, have many years of industry experience and are often university qualified. They work with anaesthetists in commissioning the medical gas systems. This is a most important role and therefore needs the benefit of a tailored licensing category that accurately captures this work. The use of the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act will enable the Government to put in place specific obligations regulating the installation, commissioning and testing of the installation as well as requiring compliance with the established Australian standards on medical gas installation. We need all these elements in place and operating effectively. Tuesday, 4 August 2020 Legislative Assembly- PROOF Page 2 As I noted when the Government opposed the private member's bill, a key criticism was of the clear lack of consultation on the regulatory proposals outlined in that bill. As I committed at the time, the Government has partnered with key stakeholders representing all areas of the medical gas industry and listened to their feedback. This bill and its policy proposals have already been the subject of significant targeted industry consultation. The Government has facilitated the feedback of stakeholders through the release of a consultation paper and a draft of the bill, and held three comprehensive round tables. We have carefully considered the feedback received and listened to the voices of 20 key stakeholder groups across the medical fraternity including gas suppliers, gasfitters, plumbers, dentists and training providers. Importantly, we have also actioned a large amount of that feedback directly through this bill. I am confident that this bill responds to a significant proportion of those submissions, either through further refinements or through broad regulation-making powers affording us the scope to make refinements under the regulations following further consultation with stakeholders. I turn now to the substance of the bill. The Government's response to the private member's bill committed to extending the strong compliance and enforcement powers of the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act to medical gases, while amending the Home Building Act to establish a new category of medical gas licensee. The Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act already provides the heads of power to put in place specific conditions and obligations for workers in this important field, as well as being able to apply strict compliance requirements and strong enforcement powers. The bill delivers on the Government's commitments by not only creating a new category of medical gasfitter, the person responsible for installing the medical gas installation, but also a new category of medical gas technician, the person who works in a medical facility with the responsibility of commissioning and servicing the medical gas installation. The bill achieves this by introducing amendments to the Home Building Act to create two new categories of "specialist work" in the definitions and to the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act by introducing a new licensing regime for medical gas installation, commissioning and testing. Schedule 1 to the bill deals with the amendments to the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act 2017. Schedule 2 deals with the amendments to the Home Building Act 1989. The bill firstly amends the definitions in section 4 of the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act to cater for the new medical gases category. Medical gases are defined as "a substance used for medical purposes and prescribed by the regulations as a medical gas." By prescribing specific medical gases in the regulations, this bill overcomes one of the deficiencies in the private member's bill by allowing the Government to finalise stakeholder consultation before prescribing specific gases and gives it the flexibility to add or remove specific gases as needed to respond to the changing nature of the industry. I will now explain in turn each of the two new specialist categories of work—medical gasfitting and medical gasfitting technician work—that are defined in section 4 (1). Medical gasfitting work means the construction, installation, replacement, repair, alteration, maintenance of the installation or testing of medical gas installation. Quite simply, this is the work done to install the pipes and the installation necessary to convey the medical gases. This work will be required to be done by a qualified person licensed under the Home Building Act. Medical gas technicians are the persons responsible for the smooth running of the medical gas installation. They respond to alarm systems, conduct regular testing and checks, and conduct the final testing, termed "commissioning", before medical installations go live. However, they do not do repairs to the installation as this is the job of the medical gasfitter. These persons will also be licensed under the Home Building Act. The Government is aware that anaesthetists necessarily play a part in the testing of medical gas installations with the medical gas technicians. However, the regulations will exclude medical and nursing staff from requiring a licence as to include them in the licensing framework would create unnecessary regulatory burden. It is necessary to extend the provisions of parts 6 and 7 of the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act to medical gasfitting work and medical gas technician work. Part 6 deals with the accident reporting and investigations, and part 7 enforcement provisions, both of which are critical aspects of any comprehensive regulatory scheme. The extension of these provisions is done by inserting a new part 5A into the Act specifically for medical gases. Part 5A extends the current meaning of "gas", "gas installation", "gasfitting work", "authorised gasfitter" and "serious gas accident" to include references to medical gases and gas work where appropriate. Stakeholders saw it as important that, where appropriate, the work had to be supervised and signed off by an appropriately qualified licensed person. It is therefore necessary that an offence provision be created in the Gas and Electricity (Consumer Safety) Act to ensure that this important medical gas work is done either by appropriately licensed persons or under the direct supervision of the licensed person. Clause 38A in division 1 of part 5A provides that a person must not carry out medical gasfitting work or medical gas technician work or employ any other person to carry out that work unless the person by whom the work is carried out does so under the authority of an appropriate supervisor certificate.