Committee Details

Committee’s report

The committee tabled its Report No. 1, Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 on 7 February 2025. 

The Bill was passed without amendment by the Queensland Parliament on 3 April 2025. The Bill was debated in the Queensland Parliament on 2 April 2025 and 3 April 2025. 

View: Report
View: Executive Summary
View: Transcript, 2 April 2025 (starts at page 767), Transcript, 3 April 2025 (starts at page 802, 829)
The debate on the Bill/Inquiry can viewed by clicking on the movie icon within the above transcript.

About the Bill 

On 12 December 2024 the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services introduced the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 into the Queensland Parliament.  The Bill was referred to the Health, Environment and Innovation Committee (committee) for detailed consideration.   

View: Explanatory speech 
View: Bill 
View: Explanatory Notes 
View: Statement of compatibility 

The Bill amends the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (National Law). Australian Health Ministers agreed in July 2024 to amend the National Law to improve public protection and public confidence in the safety of services provided by registered health practitioners. The objectives of the amendments are to:

• protect public safety by establishing a nationally consistent process for practitioners to regain registration after their registration has been cancelled, or they have been disqualified from registration, by a tribunal – cancelled and disqualified practitioners will be required to obtain a reinstatement order from a responsible tribunal before applying to a National Board for re-registration
• increase transparency for the public about disciplinary action against health practitioners who have been found by a tribunal to have engaged in serious sexual misconduct – National Boards will be required to permanently publish additional information on the national public registers
• strengthen protections for notifiers (complainants) against reprisals or other detriment, threats and intimidation, and clarify consumer protections in relation to nondisclosure agreements about the health, conduct or performance of health practitioners.

The Bill also amends the Health Ombudsman Act 2013 (Qld) and makes modifications to the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law Act 2009 (Qld) to ensure the reforms operate effectively within Queensland’s co-regulatory arrangements.

On 2 April 2025, the Hon Tim Nicholls, Minister for Health and Ambulance Services tabled an Erratum to the Explanatory Notes for the Bill. This was in response to the Committee's Recommendation 2 in their report.

View: Erratum to Explanatory Notes

Further information

Further information including written briefings, correspondence, response to submissions, transcripts and answers to questions taken on notice are available under the Related Publications tab.

Committee’s report

The committee has tabled its report on 7 February 2025. The report is published here.

Now that the committee’s report has been tabled, the Government has three months to respond to the report’s recommendations (if any). At that time, the Government Response will be published here.

Timeline