Medical Indemnity Amendment (Eligible Run‑off Claims) Regulations 2020

I, General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), Governor‑General of the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, make the following regulations.

Dated 29 March 2020

David Hurley

Governor‑General

By His Excellency’s Command

Greg Hunt

Minister for Health

Contents

1 Name

2 Commencement

3 Authority

4 Schedules

Schedule 1—Amendments

Medical Indemnity Regulations 2003

1  Name

  This instrument is the Medical Indemnity Amendment (Eligible Run-off Claims) Regulations 2020.

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.

Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this instrument as originally made.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 the Medical Indemnity Act 2002.

4  Schedules

  Each instrument that is specified in a Schedule to this instrument is amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule concerned, and any other item in a Schedule to this instrument has effect according to its terms.

Schedule 1—Amendments

Medical Indemnity Regulations 2003

1  Regulation 3

Insert:

COVID‑19 human biosecurity emergency period has the meaning given by subregulation 12A(4).

2  After regulation 12

Insert:

12A  Eligible run‑off claims—COVID‑19 human biosecurity emergency period

 (1) For the purposes of paragraph 34ZB(2)(f) of the Act, the class of persons to each of whom subregulation (2) applies is specified as persons to whom subsection 34ZB(2) of the Act applies.

 (2) Subject to subregulation (3), this subregulation applies to a person if subsection 34ZB(2) of the Act would apply to the person (disregarding this regulation) were it not for practice as a medical practitioner that the person begins to engage in:

 (a) on or after the commencement of this regulation; and

 (b) during a COVID‑19 human biosecurity emergency period.

 (3) If, 1 month after the end of the COVID‑19 human biosecurity emergency period, the person is still engaged in practice as a medical practitioner, subregulation (2) ceases to apply to the person at the end of that month.

 (4) A COVID‑19 human biosecurity emergency period is a human biosecurity emergency period (within the meaning of the Biosecurity Act 2015) in relation to which the declaration listed human disease (within the meaning of that Act) is human coronavirus with pandemic potential.