Medical Gas and Mechanical Services work will be now safe and licensed!

Alongside Theo Samartzopolous, Secretary of the Plumbing Trades Employees Union, I have been working for some time to ensure that Medical gas and Mechanical services work is a safe and licensed industry in our State.

Amelia Khan and John Ghanem were tragically given nitrous oxide instead of oxygen shortly after they were born at Bankstown-Lidcombe hospital in 2016. Notwithstanding the heartbreaking impact on the Khan and Ghanem families and despite pleas from industry experts, the Liberal and National Government failed to take action for over four years. Anyone in NSW has been permitted to legally perform medical gas and mechanical services work, which can have life and death consequences. I raised this issue in the Parliament last year, and when the Sydney Morning Herald covered my speech, the Berejiklian Government’s response was that the industry did not require licensing or regulation.

I have been extremely fortunate to have got to know the beautiful Khan family as a result of my speaking out about this important issue. I have spent time hearing how completely devastated Benish and Danial were when they found out that their newborn baby girl was given poisonous gas, which left her with irreversible brain damage. Amelia is now vision impaired, she will never be able to walk independently and is likely to have lifelong quadriplegic cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. She is also unlikely to be able to use her hands or develop speech. The Khan family expressed that they wanted to make sure that the lack of regulatory provisions is fixed so that a tragedy like this cannot happen again to another family.

I was thankful that I was able to seek approval from our Leader Jodi McKay and Labor’s Shadow cabinet to draft a Private Members Bill with the objective to license and ensure that Medical gas and Mechanical services work is only undertaken by highly skilled, qualified and experienced people in our hospitals and medical facilities. After engaging with stakeholders, including the NSW Plumbers Union, I was able to present my legislation to Parliament in June that was designed as a robust measure to prevent a repeat of the tragic events that took place at the Bankstown‑Lidcombe Hospital in 2016. The Bill passed the Upper House, this is the first time that a standalone Opposition Private Members Bill has passed the House in over 20 years. The Liberals and Nationals ultimately voted down the legislation in the Lower house. However, due to a relentless media campaign that focussed on the Bill, including a 60 minutes feature story, two lead stories on Channel Nine news, online news articles and many radio interviews, we finally saw the Government concede that they would look at addressing the lack of licensing in the industry with introducing its own legislation. It is an extremely rare event that a Government is forced into making legislation after a member of the Opposition brings forward their own Bill.

In early August the Government introduced their legislation into Parliament. The legislation was inconsistent with how the trade, the industry and its training function, and therefore it fell short on key safety measures. Industry experts made lengthy warnings to the Government about crucial safety issues and warned of the dangerous ramifications of such issues, however they were simply ignored by the Government. Amongst the vast problems, the Government’s unamended Bill would not require any qualifications at all, including Trade qualifications for the category of workers that undertake the crucial testing, certification and maintenance of the medical gas work. Mechanical services, the overall trade that Medical gas sits within would have been left unlicensed, which is an enormous safety concern as it diverts from education, training and industry practice in other States.

I therefore drafted a set of 29 robust Opposition amendments that were designed to completely reconfigure the Government’s Bill and ensure that the Government could not pass watered down legislation that would not keep the residents of NSW safe.

I ensured that the members of the crossbench knew the gravity of the safety issues within the Government’s Bill, through the organisation of in-depth consultations with experts, including the NSW Plumbers Union. The crossbench refused the pass the Government’s Bill without Labor’s amendments.

All 29 of the amendments I drafted were successfully passed in both houses of Parliament. Labor’s amendments consequently made up the substance of the legislation, ensuring that Labor’s policy is in full effect under the Law and we will now have robust protections for the residents of our state. The education and trade requirements under Labor’s amendments makes it the most robust licensing legislation in Australia. Labor’s amendments will also help substantially grow the economy with the licensing of new industries, as employers will no longer be forced to seek qualified workers from Victoria and Queensland.

Labor’s amendments make a large number of consequential changes including:

• Preventing the Government from allowing unqualified individuals from undertaking any work whatsoever in medical gas and mechanical services.

• All individuals that undertake any medical gas or mechanical services work will need specific trade or engineering qualifications and extensive experience, including for the maintenance and the vital testing and certification component of medical gas work.

• Trade qualifications and experience requirements are set out within the legislation making it the most comprehensive and safe method of licensing.

• Robust penalties regime for unlicensed work, including the requirement of vigorous supervision for apprentices. Supervisors need to personally ensure that the work is correctly completed.

• Mechanical services will now also be licensed ensuring that NSW will finally have a safe industry for extremely high-risk work, bringing us in line with Queensland and Victoria.

• All high-risk medical gas installations and work will need to be carried out in accordance with Australian Standards.