Wednesday, 8 March 2023

Petitions

Health Legislation Amendment (Information Sharing) Bill 2023

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:50): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

Today I stand for 10,000 Victorians who in just three days signed a petition to trigger this debate about medical privacy and consent. This is the first debate of this kind and a significant moment in the history of this Parliament, and I thank every one of them for giving me this opportunity. So here is the message: our medical information is deeply personal information. No person, no doctor, no politician and certainly no government should share it without our consent. The petitioners want members here to wake up from their power trip and show some respect. Privacy and consent are not about politics – it is not about whether you are left or right or red or green or blue. This is about respect. It is about empathy for others and being decent.

Privacy is essential to who we are as human beings. It gives us the space to be ourselves without judgement, allows us to think freely without discrimination and allows us to control our own lives. You do not go rifling through other people’s handbags, wallets or bedside drawers. It is rude and disrespectful. Who here wants to hand me their phone or their browsing history? Who wants me to read out their medical records? Would you like me to tell everyone here about the pills you take or your warts or your birth control or your fertility? If I did, you would be outraged. I would be denounced and, what is more, you would be right to be outraged because it would be a low act.

Well, at least 10,000 Victorians – in fact many more – are outraged that anyone would share their medical information without their consent. Nobody should be forced to share their private health information without their consent; of course they should not. It is amazing that this even needs to be said. Many Victorians have told me through emails and social media what medical privacy means to them. Nearly everyone has a unique story. Some are concerned about their recreational drug use and that it could be held against them. These are meant to be private battles; of course they are. IT professionals say they do not trust the management of the medical records. Some healthcare workers are concerned their information could be accessed by workplace bullies. Mental health professionals say that they are afraid people might hold back vital information.

It is also a worry that on International Women’s Day it is necessary for me to explain the importance of medical privacy to women. Some are petrified because their abusive exes work in health care. Some are worried that information about abortions could be discovered by their husbands or families. Victims of stalking know that abusers simply do not care about boundaries. Just ask Dianne McDonald, who might be the bravest person I have ever met. Those of you who watched Australian Story episodes called ‘To Catch a Stalker’ will know about Di, who has spent seven years in torment. Despite concerns for her own privacy, she has spoken out to defend the privacy of all stalking victims. At Parliament she asked last sitting week: what about our human rights? So what about our rights, and what about their safety? Her privacy and consent have been ignored for years, and now it seems they will be trampled on by the people in government who are supposed to protect her. I stand here on behalf of 10,000 Victorians to say: enough. You have no business showing our medical records to people unless we say so. Privacy is a human right, and our rights should never be sacrificed for convenience.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:54): I would like to rise and speak to this petition, and I want to congratulate Mr Limbrick for his contribution in regard to this debate – a very significant debate that this state is having and our Parliament is having. I think it is very concerning. I have just been reading that the legislation will pass tomorrow because a deal has been done with the Greens and the Animal Justice Party, a framework will be set up and the government will move amendments. I do not think the house has seen those amendments, yet they have been reported on. The levels of contempt this government will go to demonstrate why we should be so worried about this legislation. To those 10,000 Victorians that signed that petition within three days, I say: good on you. I just wish that more Victorians knew about what was going on in here, because not enough do. I said in my second-reading speech that Victorians were sick to death of having this government in our lives. What the Minister for Health this morning said in her members statement on International Women’s Day was that women should have choice. Well yes, they should, and they should have choice about what is shared of their patient health records.

Trung Luu interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: There is no choice here, Mr Luu. There is no choice. There is no ability to opt out.

I think this legislation and the way the government has brought this legislation into the house, yet again doing the deals with the Greens and the minor parties, are disgraceful. The opposition has not even seen the amendments. This demonstrates the contempt of this government, the arrogance of this government, and I say again, those 10,000 people that signed that petition – I guarantee you, if it did not get cut off and signed off because of the processes of the Parliament, it would have been tenfold. I am getting messages from people who are saying, ‘You can’t be serious. It’s only those within the Labor pollie bubble that want this, the rest of us do not’. We want choice and we want to be able to make a decision about our own patient records and where that information goes to.

This government is intent on controlling so much of us. Victorians, you must understand that what you have got now is slowly eroding. Your freedoms, your rights – they are eroding. This government is making sure of that. This Premier and his ministers are making certain of that. We saw today the Qdos news – $2 million of taxpayers money to see how people felt about him. The Premier, I am referring to – the curfew decision made by him was not made by the chief health officer. I am going off on a bit of a tangent here, but the point is that this government controls so much and has controlled so much of our lives over the last three years. I do not want them to control any more of it. I want Victorians to have a choice. I want Victorians to have the ability to opt out of this.

I think it is a disgrace that the government has not even had the decency to provide the opposition and other members of the crossbench with their plans for the amendments that they are going to put to the house as this debate continues on patient information tomorrow, yet it does the deal – the secret little grubby deals – with the Greens again and the Animal Justice Party. We saw it in the last Parliament, we will see it in this Parliament. Victorians, your rights are eroding under this regime, and it is getting worse and worse. I say again: good on you, Mr Limbrick, for doing what you have done in promoting this to expose it to as many Victorians as possible, because this is our democracy that is slowly slipping away from us. If you do not have a right to choose what information about your own health, your own body, your own self; those issues, whether they are physical, mental or sexual abuse; anything – if you do not have a right and control over what you can do with that information and where it goes and who you share it with, let me tell you, the trust will erode further. It might be convenient – and, yes, it is convenient for health services – but it is not about that. This is about an ability to have choice. This government is eroding Victorians’ choice further and further with the introduction of this bill. I say again: it is a damn disgrace that we have not seen those amendments, and I want to commend every single one of those signatories who put their name to the petition.

Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (17:59): Firstly, within the private sector over the last couple of years we have seen such large-scale data breaches that I genuinely do not believe that this government, which has a tendency to outsource its responsibilities, can offer the level of security required to manage such sensitive information with any real confidence. My primary concern is for the people of Victoria. Those who do not have time to engage in political dialogue, those who are so busy working to keep a roof over their heads, they have neither the time nor the inclination to sign these petitions – those Victorians who will be most affected by this bill and will not even know it until it is too late. Secondly, I would like to ensure our youngest generations are not exposed to the potential data leaks of their most sensitive information, most of which is likely to pertain to personal issues that are yet to even be diagnosed.

My concern for the plethora of potential violations that could be perpetuated with this information is very real as our society steamrolls unchecked towards a digital dysphoria. The invasive and inhumane practice of forcing people to entrust this government with their most sensitive information on nothing more than their word that it will be secure is woefully inadequate. My own extended friends and family being signatories, I support the petitioners, Mr Limbrick and all his proposed amendments.

Nicholas McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:00): I cannot fathom that on this day and in this Parliament we are about to – I hope not, but we are about to – put through one of the greatest affronts to the human rights of every Victorian. I congratulate the 10,000 signatories to the petition. I know that the people of the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region are very strong in this view and are supportive of what I am saying today and what other members have said already, and that is that after the experience of COVID and everything that everyone went through, for this government to use that – and that is what they did, let us be fair about this; they used that as an opportunity to not once but now twice seek in this place a law that unashamedly strips away from every Victorian, without their consent.

It is not only medical information. Let us also be clear about this: it is not only their medical information. We know this because in the bill that is proposed before this house it specifically refers to the definition of ‘health information’ in the Health Records Act 2001. It says specifically ‘other personal information about an individual collected in connection with’ that individual, and so on and forth. It is Orwellian. It is sinister. And this is from a government who cannot even tell the people of Victoria how they are going to pay for it – number one. They cannot even tell the people of Victoria the budget. We know their record when it comes to ICT and all of these sorts of databases, because the Auditor-General has told us time and again that this government – indeed successive governments – have failed spectacularly when it comes to either managing the budget around these kinds of systems and/or actually providing an outcome that is of any purpose to the people of Victoria.

This is what this is about: they are constantly using this shield as though somehow this is going to produce better health outcomes. We hear this time and again, yet the irony is there is nothing in the act that enshrines or seeks to do that or measure that in any meaningful way, shape or form. There is absolutely no regard whatsoever – and I hope the crossbench keep this in mind when they vote in the days ahead – for the unconscious bias that this will absolutely create in the physicians that see their patients. When a patient comes to the doctor and they go to the next doctor because they are not happy with that advice – or they simply have the right to seek other advice – the unconscious bias of seeing that advice previously may lead to actually having poor health outcomes. That is number one.

Number two, there may well be hundreds of thousands of Victorians who may now simply not seek medical support because they know that that doctor or that physician or that clinician will be able to access at a moment’s notice their medical past without their consent. That is what is at the heart of this attack on every Victorian’s human rights – that is the right to consent to their private information and that of their children. We have got children mixed up in all of this, and we are going to sit idly by and allow this to happen. As though that is not bad enough, this government wants to strip away the right of any citizen in this state to use freedom-of-information laws to know whether somebody did access their information, how they used that information or whether they misused that information.

We have heard in this chamber this afternoon those on the other side talk about natural justice. Up hill and down dale, cannot do this, cannot do that – natural justice. This affords no Victorian any natural justice at all. You simply strip away from them their consent to their most private, their most personal and their most intimate information without a blink of an eye. So when those opposite get up and start preaching about natural justice – you have got to be kidding. You are making a farce of it. You are making a fool of us, you are making a fool of the Parliament, because if you are sincere about that then you will make sure that when this bill comes back it is in such an amended form that it does give Victorians the right to opt out, as they absolutely deserve.

If is it good enough at the federal level, it is good enough in Queensland, why the dickens isn’t it good enough in Victoria? No-one can answer that question for me. By the way, no-one can also answer the question of why we cannot use the federal health system we have already got established. Millions and millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent on that – not a whisper, not a word in this chamber; not a whisper, not a word in the other chamber, the other place. No-one can tell us why we are paying for two systems. No-one can tell us whether those two systems will even talk to each other, much less actually tell us how any of this – the money spent, the intrusion on people’s rights – will actually lead to better outcomes for people’s health. If they could tell us how that would be the case, then I might even consider it, but that is simply not the case.

Motion agreed to.