Legislation (Deferral of Sunsetting—Health Insurance (Vocational Registration of General Practitioners) Regulations) Certificate 2018 (Cth)

Legislation (Deferral of Sunsetting—Health Insurance (Vocational Registration of General Practitioners) Regulations) Certificate 2018

I, Christian Porter, Attorney‑General, make the following certificate.

Dated   13 February 2018

Christian Porter

Attorney‑General

Contents

1............ Name............................................................................................................................. 1

2............ Commencement............................................................................................................. 1

3............ Authority....................................................................................................................... 1

4............ Definitions..................................................................................................................... 1

5............ Statement of reasons for issue of certificate................................................................... 1

6............ Deferral of sunsetting of the Regulations...................................................................... 2

7............ Repeal of this instrument............................................................................................... 2

1  Name

This instrument is the Legislation (Deferral of Sunsetting—Health Insurance (Vocational Registration of General Practitioners) Regulations) Certificate 2018.

2  Commencement

(1)  Each provision of this instrument specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

Commencement information
Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
Provisions	Commencement	Date/Details
1.  The whole of this instrument	The day after this instrument is registered.	27 February 2018

Note:          This table relates only to the provisions of this instrument as originally made. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this instrument.

(2)  Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this instrument. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this instrument.

3  Authority

This instrument is made under paragraph 51(1)(c) of the Legislation Act 2003.

4  Definitions

In this instrument:

GP means general practitioner.

Legislation Act means the Legislation Act 2003.

Register means the Vocational Register established under the Health Insurance Act 1973.

Regulations means the Health Insurance (Vocational Registration of General Practitioners) Regulations 1989.

5  Statement of reasons for issue of certificate

For the purposes of paragraph 51(2)(a) of the Legislation Act, this section sets out the statement of the reasons for the issue of this certificate.

Statement of reasons

I am satisfied that the Regulations would, apart from the operation of Part 4 of Chapter 3 of the Legislation Act, be likely to cease to be in force within 12 months after the sunsetting day for the Regulations.

The Regulations assist in the administration of the Register. A medical practitioner included on the Register is recognised by Medicare as a GP for the purposes of determining eligibility for higher (A1) Medicare rebate rates. When the Register was first established, it was the only pathway to such recognition. While other pathways based on vocational qualifications have since been added, the Register continues to be the only pathway for access to Medicare and to GP recognition for a group of practitioners who had not gained fellowship status by 1996.

In 2010, the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme commenced. It established general practice as a specialty registration category across Australia, and provided the Medical Board of Australia with responsibility for determining continuing professional development requirements in order for medical practitioners to retain their annual registration.

With these changes, the Register and the Regulations have become largely redundant. However, amendments are required to the Health Insurance Act 1973 to repeal references to the Register and transitional provisions will be required for those GPs who have been on the Register but have not obtained specialist recognition. Those amendments are intended to be included in a larger suite of amendments of that Act which are anticipated to commence before 1 April 2019. The Regulations will be repealed if those amendments commence.

The Regulations are due to sunset on 1 April 2018. A 12 month deferral of the sunsetting day for the Regulations will likely avoid the need to remake them in their current form for the short period before they cease to be in force.

6  Deferral of sunsetting of the Regulations

The Regulations, for which the sunsetting day is 1 April 2018, are taken to cease to be in force under section 51 of the Legislation Act on 1 April 2019.

7  Repeal of this instrument

This instrument is repealed at the start of 2 April 2019.