Australian Health Minister Nicola Roxon is not telling the truth about the Medicare e-card

Remember over the course of 2009 the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon assuring everyone within hearing that the new Medicare smart card would contain data and, give access to a database, which could be checked for accuracy by individual patients and that information would only be given out if the individual patient agreed to participate in the e-health scheme?
This is what the Minister was putting about at the time:
Eventually, the plan is for each person to have an individual e-health record, which holds their personal details; a summary health profile that can be shared with the person's permission between treating doctors; event summaries such as hospital discharge reports, care plans and test results, and a self-care management record where people can add their own material. and Ms Roxon has said participation in e-health records schemes would be voluntary and yet again All Australian residents will be allocated an Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) to support better communication between healthcare providers involved in patient treatment – but no patient will be forced to use it to access any health service.
Believed her did you?
Well, she told whoppers - barefaced and knowingly.
The proof is in the draft Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 which contains no precise provisions along those lines.
All the bill does is allow for the collection, storage and dissemination of personal and health information without the patient's explicit knowledge or consent.
This outrageous bill relies on p*ss poor protections found in the Commonwealth Privacy Act, which has few teeth to redress bureaucratic wrongdoing in relation to misuse of personal information or inaccurate record keeping.
The Privacy Act was never designed to cover a national health information datatbase and National Privacy Principles also only contain general intents that informed consent be given for data collection and dissemination or that an individual be given access to their information {thanks to Clarencegirl for pointing that out to me}
As for what looks like exemption for incorporated medical practices from any application of the Criminal Code in relation to improper handling or misuse of personal health information compiled for or received from the national database - well the mind boggles.
While NEHTA's claim that “There is also a very strict audit trail so that any individual can know that someone has accessed their record in the system which is an additional layer of security" is just plain absurd when there is no legislative requirement in place which would allow any individual patient to be informed if their records had been accessed and by whom.
But what really has the Rudd Government falling down that rabbit hole into an alternative reality is the fact that politicians and "well-known personalities" will be given special false identities to prevent their medical records falling into the wrong hands.
Apparently the threat of your personal medical details falling into the wrong hands is an acceptable risk, but the risk is not acceptable when it comes to the personal medical details of Rudd & Roxon or their mates. {Yep, three cheers here for egalitarian Australia}
And what is the Rudd Government going to do with all this very detailed information (right down to whether a twin was delivered first or second) it intends to collect?
Well b#gger all, because no state or territory or hospital or medical practice or doctor or community nurse is anywhere near geared up for this giant trawl though the nations' private life and may never be.
For state governments have not proceeded past a sort of glorified memorandum of understanding on e-health in effect until 30 June 2012.
Roxon's information collection through compulsory sixteen-digit health identifiers is looking more and more like a national identity database in disguise.
No wonder there's such an uproar among the privacy watchdogs.
When did the Australian Labor Party lose its basic common sense?

• So you want to look through my medical records?
• Federal Labor and Health Minister Roxon crossing a bridge too far