Health Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 1) Bill 2025, Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2025, Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Financial Systems and Other Measures) Bill 2025

Senator GREEN (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Tourism, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs and Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) (18:27): I move: That these bills be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows— HEALTH LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MISCELLANEOUS MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2025 The Health Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No.1) Bill 2025 makes important changes to legislation within the health portfolio to support our Government's delivery of a stronger Medicare including more bulk billing and thousands more doctors. Schedule 1 to the Bill will amend the Health Insurance Act 1973 to make sure Medicare provider numbers can be allocated to new practitioners in a faster and more streamlined way.

Amendments made by Schedule 1 to the Bill will enable the Chief Executive Medicare to approve the use of a computer program to make appropriate, non-discretionary decisions to allocate Medicare provider numbers. This will speed up the process of applying for a provider number, while all decisions to refuse a provider number would continue to be checked and authorised by the Chief Executive Medicare or their delegate.

The Bill will also validate previously issued Medicare provider numbers that were issued by a computer program. Overseas health professionals often face lengthy waits to receive their Medicare provider number. This delays them from commencing work in the Australian health system.

In fact, the Independent Review of Australia's Regulatory Settings Relating to Overseas Health Practitioners, led by Robyn Kruk AO, reported that the wait time can be up to 3 months. Reducing the time it takes for Medicare provider numbers to be issued will help us grow our medical workforce sooner and start treating patients under Medicare quicker. Growing and supporting the health workforce is a priority for our Government.

Having the right workforce with the right skills in the right place is critical to the success of the Government's agenda to strengthen Medicare. We are working with state and territory governments, education providers and regulators to implement the recommendations of the Kruk Review. This will ease shortages in the health workforce by removing unnecessary barriers and expediting regulatory processes to bring more skilled health practitioners to Australia.

The efficiencies that can be realised through implementation of this Bill will lead to reduced processing times and allow health practitioners to provide services to the Australian community more quickly. Internationally qualified health practitioners currently supplement the domestic workforce and aid in addressing workforce shortages, making for a more sustainable health workforce overall.

Schedule 2 to the Bill will amend Chapters 2, 5 and 6 of the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to support the process for claiming the Private Health Insurance Rebate under the Premiums Reduction Scheme. The Private Health Insurance Rebate is an initiative designed to make private health insurance more affordable for Australians by funding part of their premiums.

The Premium Reductions Scheme allows eligible people to choose to get the rebate at the time they pay their private health insurance premiums, rather than pay the full cost of the premium, and then claim a deduction back through their tax return at the end of the financial year. Under the scheme, the insurer reduces the premium payable by the policyholder by the amount of the rebate and then claims reimbursement of that amount through a system administered by Services Australia.

As a result of systems limitations, some elements of the registration and claims processing system were being administered inconsistently with the requirements of the Act. Schedule 2 to the Bill will therefore amend the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to: align the registration process in Division 23 with requirements of the system operated by Services Australia provide for self-assessment by participating insurers of the amount of rebate required to be reimbursed in Division 279 require an insurer to provide information or documents to support their claim and ensure over-payments can be recovered despite any unintended system or process defects in Division 282, and allow for computer assisted decision-making and the approval of forms and systems by Chief Executive Medicare in Division 333.

A participating insurer will continue to be subject to regular post-payment compliance activities to ensure the integrity of the payment process. Schedule 3 to the Bill will make essential changes to allow regulations to be made to modernise the assignment of the Medicare benefits process. This process underpins Medicare bulk billing.

Last year, the Parliament passed the Health Insurance Legislation Amendment (Assignment of Medicare Benefits) Act 2024, providing for generational change to modernise and simplify how patients assign their Medicare benefits. These changes recognised that patients and health care providers are no longer using paper-based processes that existed when Medicare was first set up over 40 years ago.

This Bill will build on those changes and remedy minor issues identified during the drafting of supporting regulations for the Assignment of Medicare Benefits Act. It will also extend the time available for software vendors to build and test new digital solutions, and for medical industry providers and patients to prepare for the changes. Bulk billing is vital for timely and equitable access to health care.

Access to bulk billed medical care helps with cost-of-living pressures and ensures every Australian receives the best health care that they deserve. This Bill provides for regulations to specify the circumstances in which enduring bulk billing agreements can be made. This will streamline the administration of MBS claiming, when services are bulk billed by a preferred provider or organisation.

The Bill will also enable the Minister to issue a legislative instrument to categorise professional services for application in bulk billing assignment agreements. This will support the use of pre-assignment agreements, giving patients simple yet meaningful information to assign their benefits before services have been provided. The amendments will support simplified and streamlined billing for privately insured hospital services, so they do not have to deal with bills from multiple providers.

The Bill will clarify wording to ensure that any eligible person covered under a private health insurance policy can assign their own Medicare benefits, not just the person in whose name the policy is held. It also amends mandatory notification requirements to reduce the administrative burden and cost for providers. The Bill will delay the commencement of new assignment of benefit arrangements from 9 January 2026 to 1 July 2026.

This will provide stakeholders with an additional six months to prepare before the new arrangements commence. Schedule 4 to the Bill will amend Part VD of the Health Insurance Act 1973 to ensure the consequences for bonded medical program participants who withdraw from the program or fail to complete their 'return of service obligation' are fair. The changes balance the personal circumstances of the bonded participant with the broader interests of the community.

The Bill provides capacity to make rules to ensure that past work completed by bonded participants—delivering health services in regional, rural and remote locations in Australia—can be fairly and consistently counted towards their 'return of service obligation'. I commend this Bill to the Chamber. PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE (NATIONAL JOINT REPLACEMENT REGISTER LEVY) AMENDMENT BILL 2025 The National Joint Replacement Registry is currently administered by the Australian Orthopaedic Association.

The Registry collects information from all relevant hospitals in Australia to define, improve and maintain the quality of care of individuals receiving joint replacement surgery. The Australian Orthopaedic Association receives funding to operate the Registry through a Commonwealth Grant Agreement. The cost of the grant is efficiently recovered through the imposition of a levy on sponsors of joint replacement devices under the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Act 2009.

The purpose of the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Amendment Bill 2025 is to provide that the person responsible for payment of the levy under the Act is the person specified in the rules made under section 8 of the Act. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has always charged the levy consistent with the policy intent.

That is, the person who is responsible for a medical device listed on the Prescribed List of Medical Devices and Human Tissue Products on the levy imposition day is responsible for paying the levy. Currently, the Act only recognises the person responsible at the time of the listing of a device, and not any subsequent person who is responsible for that listing over time due to business or other changes.

Specifying the responsible person in the rules will allow limitations in the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to be addressed. Provisions have been included to validate past levy collections. I commend the Bill to the Chamber.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2025 A dynamic and uncertain geopolitical outlook requires that Australia update its electronic surveillance and law enforcement frameworks to meet new challenges. Our Government's commitment to create a nation where everyone can be safe and feel safe must include cyber and telecommunications systems. The changes in the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 are technical, but provide essential clarifications to ensure that the agencies that keep our nation safe, can continue do so in an era of rapid technological development.

Schedule 1 to the Bill contains amendments to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. These changes willensure that the Commonwealth is able to comply with its duty of disclosure owed to the courts in relation to network activity warrant information. The disclosure of network activity warrants information will remain rightly very limited and subject to strict safeguards, however clarity is required so that the Commonwealth can provide information as necessary to ensure the defensible prosecution of serious criminal activity.

Schedule 2 to the Bill also amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to transfer the regulatory role of the Communications Access Coordinator from the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department to the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs. This in line with Machinery of Government changes related to both departments. Schedule 3 to the Bill contains technical amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to ensure that the framework for testing and developing technologies and interception capabilities can operate in the manner that Parliament intended.

The amendments will enable the Attorney-General to authorise access to stored communications under developing and testing authorisations, in circumstances where the authorisation would have authorised the interception of the same communication if it were still passing over a telecommunications system. These amendments are necessary as technological advancements have resulted in a situation where stored communications may pass over the telecommunications system alongside, and become indistinguishable from live communications.

Agencies therefore need to be able to access both stored communications and live communications for development and testing purposes, to ensure that they can continue to keep pace with technological advancements. Strict controls will continue to apply to the collection, use and destruction of all information obtained under testing authorisations. In particular, agencies will only be permitted to use the information for testing and development, and will not be able to use it for investigative purposes.

Schedule 4 to the Bill contains amendments to the international production order framework in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to give effect to the original intent of that framework. The amendments will provide certainty that interception orders issued to Australian law enforcement and national security agencies may be used to obtain prospective content data from communications providers in a country with which Australia has a designated international agreement, regardless of the technical method by which that prospective data is sent to the agency.

Schedule 5 to the Bill contains amendments to the Crimes Act 1914 to clarify and strengthen safeguards in the controlled operations provisions framework. Crimes committed or facilitated online are becoming more prevalent, organised and extreme. The anonymous nature of the internet means there may be a lack of information available to law enforcement to assess potential risks when deciding whether to authorise or vary a controlled operation.

Currently, the legislation does not clearly express the extent to which an authorising officer is expected to foresee potential risks and not authorise or vary a controlled operation on the basis of these risks. The amendments will clarify that authorising officers must consider the direct and reasonably foreseeable consequences of controlled conduct when authorising or varying a controlled operation.

The amendments also provide clearer legal protections for officers involved in undercover operations targeted at taking down sexual abuse syndicates. The framework will retain appropriate carve outs for liability protections for where officers engage in illegal behaviour not pursuant to an approved controlled operation, where their conduct would be likely to cause the death or serious injury of a person or where their conduct would involve the commission of a sexual offence against a person.

In the 2023-24 financial year alone, reports of online child exploitation to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation increased by 45 per cent from the previous year. The amendments will better enable law enforcement to investigate and take down abhorrent criminal offenders who operate with sophisticated levels of anonymity online and target the most vulnerable in our community.

The Albanese Labor government will always ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the capabilities they need to keep us safe. This bill will ensure that our agencies can adapt to the rapid evolution of technology used to conduct criminal activity. I commend this bill to the house.

TREASURY LAWS AMENDMENT (STRENGTHENING FINANCIAL SYSTEMS AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2025 This Bill consists of measures designed to strengthen confidence in our markets, improve the way regulators operate, and support long-term economic growth. Its provisions span areas as diverse as corporate disclosure, the regulation of charities, oversight of financial regulators, energy market protections, and taxation.

One measure of particular significance for small businesses is the continuation of the $20,000 instant asset write-off until mid-2026. Its value lies in encouraging businesses to invest in new equipment and technology. Productivity is not only about working smarter, but also about working with better tools.

When firms are able to expand and upgrade their capital stock, they achieve what is known as capital deepening—more capital per worker—which is one of the surest routes to higher productivity. By allowing immediate deductions, this measure reduces the barrier to making those investments and helps ensure that Australian workers are equipped to do their jobs more efficiently.

Boosting productivity is a central focus for our government—reflected in the Treasurer's recent Economic Reform Roundtable, a valuable national conversation aimed at delivering higher living standards for all Australians. The Bill also recognises that strong markets depend on transparency. In our corporate sector, greater clarity about who holds influence over listed companies supports fairer and more efficient decision-making and ensures that directors and investors can respond on the basis of accurate information.

For the wider community, improved access to ownership information means that journalists, academics and others are better placed to shine light on potential concentrations of power. In civil society, too, openness matters. Allowing the charities regulator to speak more directly to the public where there are concerns of misconduct ensures that trust in the sector is not eroded by silence or uncertainty.

In both domains—business and the not-for-profit sector—transparency provides the oxygen that accountability requires. Other provisions of the Bill ensure that reviews of our financial regulators are conducted with sufficient depth, that consumer safeguards in the energy market remain in place during the transition, and that the law continues to operate as intended through a set of technical amendments.

Together, these measures promote investment, transparency and accountability—the conditions on which stronger productivity and public confidence ultimately rest. I turn now to each of the Schedules in the bill. Schedule 1 to the Bill will improve the transparency of ownership and control of entities listed on Australian financial markets.

Firstly, it broadens market disclosures to better capture interests arising through equity derivatives—closing a disclosure loophole and bringing Australia into greater alignment with many comparable international jurisdictions. It also strengthens the existing substantial holding and tracing notice regimes that govern the disclosure of interests in listed entities, while enhancing the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's regulatory enforcement powers and the penalties it can seek to help ensure compliance.

Better ownership information will improve market efficiency, including by improving investors' ability to conduct due diligence on prospective acquisitions, supporting a more efficient allocation of resources. It will also give company directors and security-holders better visibility whenever someone may be seeking to build up influence over their companies. Schedule 1 to the Bill further supports corporate transparency by providing greater access to beneficial ownership information to interested members of the public; including providing journalists and academics, who play a key role in initiating and encouraging public debate, with fee-free access to tracing notice registers.

This measure builds on our government's corporate transparency achievements. Since 2022, Labor has implemented a suite of corporate transparency reforms aimed at curbing secrecy and strengthening accountability. Firms tendering for large government contracts are now required to disclose their country of tax residency.

Australian listed and unlisted public companies must disclose the tax residency of their subsidiaries in their annual financial reports through a Consolidated Entity Disclosure Statement. Our government has implemented a world-leading public country-by-country reporting regime, requiring billion-dollar multinationals to disclose where they pay tax. country-by-country reporting regime, requiring billion-dollar multinationals to disclose where they pay tax.

Schedule 2 will allow the Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission to make disclosures about new or ongoing investigations where the disclosure would prevent or minimise the risk of significant harm. Secrecy provisions currently prevent the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission from disclosing whether it is investigating alleged misconduct by a charity.

This adversely impacts public trust and confidence in the sector and in the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission as an effective regulator. This reform will allow the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission to assure charities and donors that it is acting on issues of public concern and strengthening compliance, which will boost public confidence that the sector is doing the right thing.

By increasing public trust and confidence in charities and the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, this reform will help to ensure donors and philanthropists continue their support for the sector. This will contribute to the Government's commitment of doubling philanthropic giving by 2030. This builds on our government's work to strengthen Australia's civic fabric.

Since coming to office, we have created a new pathway for community foundations to gain deductible gift recipient status and streamlined deductible gift recipient applications for environmental, harm-prevention, cultural and overseas aid organisations. We appointed widely respected sector expert Sue Woodward as charities commissioner. We refreshed the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Advisory Board, chaired by Sarah Davies, to better reflect the sector, bringing First Nations, CALD and youth voices to the table.

We have been clear that charitable advocacy is welcome, and we have worked with states and territories to harmonise fundraising rules across jurisdictions. The Australian Government has funded a new General Social Survey, adding questions on volunteering and cultural participation to sharpen our understanding of how giving, participation and purpose-driven activity benefit communities.

We have commissioned a once-in-a-generation Productivity Commission review of philanthropy, and set about adopting its recommendations, including scrapping the $2 donation deduction threshold and consulting on increasing the minimum contribution by giving funds. We have begun work on the not-for-profit sector Blueprint, whose recommendations span multiple portfolios across government.

I thank the many charities and non-profits who joined Minister Plibersek and myself for a roundtable at Parliament House on 5 August to discuss boosting productivity in the sector. Schedule 3 changes the frequency of the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority review cycles. Increasing the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority review cycles to every five years will support the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority to deliver more comprehensive reviews of Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Australian Prudential Regulator Authority.

It will facilitate the delivery of more considered recommendations than is possible under the current biennial review cycle, which will improve the effectiveness of our financial system regulators. Regulators will also have additional time to respond to recommendations between reviews, allowing future panels to assess implementation meaningfully and direct their focus more productively.

Schedules 4 and 5 to the Bill amend various laws in the Treasury portfolio to ensure those laws operate in accordance with policy intent, make minor changes to improve administrative outcomes and remedy unintended consequences, as well as correcting technical and drafting defects. The Legislative and Governance Forum on Corporations was notified in relation to amendments in Schedules 4 and 5 of the Bill in accordance with clauses 506 and 506 of the Corporations Agreement 2002.

The States and Territories were notified in relation to amendments in Schedule 5 of the Bill in accordance with subclause 33(f) of the Intergovernmental Agreement on National Competition 2024. Schedule 6 to the Bill also supports the Albanese Government's ongoing efforts to improve electricity affordability and protect consumers in the energy market. The value provided by existing consumer protections in the energy market was recently reinforced by the Review into the effectiveness of the Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct Act 2019.

This review examined retail and wholesale consumer protections embedded in Part XICA of the Competition and Consumer Act. It found that the provisions in Part XICA, created through the Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct Act 2019 had, on balance, likely been effective in constraining market misconduct and protecting consumers. To maintain these protections, the Government is taking action to extend the sunset date of these provisions to 1 January 2031.

This work is part of a broader strategy to support the energy transition while maintaining affordability and fairness. It complements other initiatives as part of the energy transition and ensures that consumers remain protected. The relevant provisions are outlined in Schedule 6, which detail the legislative amendments required to extend the sunsetting date of the consumer protections to 1 January 2031.

Schedule 7 to the Bill amends the Income Tax (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997 to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off until 30 June 2026, to improve cash flow and reduce compliance costs for small businesses. Up to 4.1 million small businesses, with aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million, will be able to immediately deduct eligible assets costing less than $20,000 until 30 June 2026.

The $20,000 threshold will apply on a per asset basis, so small businesses can instantly write off multiple assets. Assets costing $20,000 or more can be placed into the small business simplified depreciation pool and depreciated at 15 per cent in the first income year and 30 per cent each income year thereafter. Economic research into the benefits of accelerated depreciation dates back to the seminal work in 1967 of Robert Hall and Dale Jorgenson in the American Economic Review.

Having studied under Dale Jorgenson, who died in 2022, it is a pleasure to be introducing a measure that follows in his intellectual legacy. By allowing an immediate deduction, the instant asset write-off provides a sharper incentive for small businesses across the economy to invest in new equipment and technology, helping boost their productivity. Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

Debate adjourned. Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.