The Australian Department of Health has sent “please explain” letters to parties to 450 leases for pathology approved collection centres, as part of its new commitment to strengthening compliance with the “prohibited practices regime” under the Health Insurance Act 1973 (Cth) (Act). This represents just under 10 percent of all pathology approved co-located centre leases in Australia. Although … Read more

Welcome to this week’s edition of HWL Ebsworth’s Super Alert. We trust that you will enjoy this edition. ASIC report on relief applications – April 2018 to September 2018 On 6 December 2018, ASIC released Report 602 titled “Overview of decisions on relief applications (April 2018 to September 2018)”. In Report 602, ASIC sets out … Read more

On 23 November 2018, the NSW Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Pacific National Pty Ltd v Baldacchino [2018] NSWCA 281 (Baldacchino). The Court (per Macfarlan JA, Payne JA and Simpson AJA agreeing) dismissed the appeal against a decision of a Deputy President of the Workers Compensation Commission (WCC). The Court of Appeal … Read more

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) provides a statutory guarantee that services must be provided with due care and skill. For many years, section 63(a) of the ACL has exempted providers of transportation services from this guarantee if their services are being supplied under a contact for transportation of goods for the purposes of a business … Read more

Amendments to the Local Government Act 2009 (LGA), which came into force 3 December 2018, have caused an adjustment to the way in which the conduct of local government councillors are assessed in Queensland. The amendments have been responsible for the creation of the Office of the Independent Assessor (OIA) and the appointment of Kathleen Florian (formerly … Read more