News

Cameron Foote
Tonight's session is presented by PBOC and Queensland Health and it is to provide you with an update on the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024.
We are scheduled to run from 7:00 to 8:00 tonight. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which we meet today and pay respects to elders past and present. For me in Brisbane, that's the Meanjin, it is the Yuggera and Turrbal people.

Now it's exciting. We know that the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act will commence 1st of November. We're very, very close. Tonight's webinar is about supporting pharmacy business owners, and the representatives that they will be using, when applying for their first licence.

You'll hear tonight from myself, the CEO, Natalie Wakefield, who some of you have met previously, and we'll also hear from Jane Van-Eyk, who is the Director, Pharmacy Business Ownership Implementation Unit, ICT Project, Queensland Health
who will help you through the application process. For the those of you who's sort of wondering what the ICT project means, essentially, it's the back-office software that helps support the program on which we're going to be operating. There'll be an interim measure in place for when we start, and we will develop a longer-term solution thereafter.

Natalie, as we heard from our first webinar, is an experienced regulator with many years’ experience in Queensland Revenue Office, understanding the taxation system within state level. She also led the introduction of Australia's first labour hire licensing scheme in Queensland. She was then seconded to work in Victoria on their Labour Hire Authority, which is like our Council, a statutory body. Natalie commenced her four-year term as CEO on the 16th of June this year.

Jane has been a member of Queensland Health Implementation Team since April 24. She holds a Bachelor of Law, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Laws degree and has over 17 years of experience working in legal policy and regulatory leadership roles in Queensland Health and Treasury.

Also, in the background tonight, we're in Queensland Health offices here in Brisbane, we've got Kirsten Law, Director. We've got Carol Calderbank and Nicole Floyd, who will help us during the evening. Now you're welcome to put any questions you like in the chat function at any stage. We will attempt to address as many of those at the end of the presentation as we possibly can. Don't worry, if we don't get to them, you will get a response from the team. Please, as we've mentioned at previous webinars, we can't provide you specific advice tonight. We're here to provide general advice and guidance only. And you'll need to get your own advice from your own solicitors and legal representatives.
Today's webinar is being recorded and will be made available online on our Council website in due course. And for those of you who've registered, we'll also send you a copy of the slides via e-mail. I'll now hand over to Natalie, our CEO. Thanks, Nat.

Natalie Wakefield  
Thanks very much, Cameron. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for making the time to join us for the webinar, what will be our last webinar before we kick off on the 1st of November 2025. So, we're getting really close now. We wanted to make sure at this webinar that we're really focused on helping you understand when to apply for a licence, how to apply for a pharmacy business licence, and also to show you how you can find supporting information on our website. So, you may have seen our communications already that went out on the 3rd of October that provided links to some important written material for pharmacy owners and advisors that you'll need to make your application for your initial pharmacy business license. This included the Approved Form 1, which is the application for a licence. There was also a Guidance Note to support you in completing the application. We also provided a link to the Pharmacy Business Ownership Regulation 2025 which prescribes the fees and the standards for authorised premises and that regulation will also commence on the 1st of November 2025. The final thing that we provided in that communication was a Guidance Note about those standards for authorised premises. You can find all these materials by going to our website and clicking on the Apply for a licence icon. You can also scan the QR code on this slide and you'll get a get a link to all the materials that you need.

Tonight, I'm going to take you through when to apply for a licence, and second of all, how to complete the Approved Form 1. I'm going to work through a couple of simple examples just to demonstrate how to use the form. Jane is then going to take us through the remainder of the application process, so she's going to explain how to upload your application securely and pay your application fees to council.

The first very important question, when do I need to apply for a pharmacy business licence? After the 1st of November, on commencement of the Act, all pharmacy businesses operating in Queensland will at some point over the next one to two years need to apply for, and be granted, a license under the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024. So existing owners of existing businesses, that is those that are operating currently under the 2001 Act as of the 31 October 2025, will get the benefit of a transition period to apply for their licence. Under the transitional provisions most existing owners of an existing business will have one year to apply for their licence. Owners will be able to apply for the licence at any time during that year, but they must make their application by the 31 October 2026.

Some existing owners of existing businesses will have two years to apply for a licence where they meet certain eligibility requirements, which we've spoken about previously. This includes corporate owners who have corporate shareholders and where there are corporate beneficiaries within a trust arrangement in your business structure. The additional time allows for existing owners to change their ownership structure so that it complies with the new Act. These owners can apply at any time within the two years, but they must apply by the 31 October 2027.

The important thing to note about existing owners of existing businesses as well is that you once you make your application, you can continue to operate, so you don't need to wait until a licence is granted.

However, the next important point is that the transitional arrangements only apply to existing owners of existing businesses.  This means that if an existing business changes its ownership after the commencement of the Act, the new owner will need to apply for, and be granted a licence, before the ownership change can take effect, that is prior to the settlement of the transaction.

The other important thing to note is if you do have an existing business and it's owned by someone who is not currently permitted to own a pharmacy business under the 2001 Act,  a simple example of that would be a natural person who is not a pharmacist, then they will not get the benefit of the transitional period provisions either as they shouldn't currently be operating under that structure.

The final thing to note is that any new pharmacy business, so a business not currently operating as at the 31st of October 2025 will need to apply for and be granted a licence before the business can commence trading.

Looking now at the application for a pharmacy business licence. To make an application for a pharmacy business license, you'll need to use Approved Form 1, which you can download from our website currently as PDF fillable forms. Before I get into the details of the form and take you through the example, I'd just like to acknowledge Carol Calderbank from the project team who has been dedicated to this task of creating the forms, annexures and the Fit and Proper Person Details Form, which has been a really very detailed and intricate process. Thanks to Carol and the team. We've tried to design the form with clients in mind. We've tried to use simple language and explanations within the form to help you complete it. We've also tried as much as possible, with manual forms, to find that sort of happy path so where you've got a simple structure or business arrangements, it's not quite as difficult to fill in. We do expect the usability to improve once we're able to transition to our online portal rather than our interim solution of PDF fillable forms and we expect that
in the first half of next year.

While we do have short explanations in the form to assist you in completing it, for those of you who like a good read or if you do need some more information, there's also a comprehensive Guidance Note available which steps you through the requirements of each component of the approved form. I just want to take the time to thank Nicole Floyd and Alessandra Atkinson for their work on the Guidance Notes.

We've also tried to broadly ask for relevant documents upfront to help limit the requests for additional information once the application is lodged. Acknowledging this may still be required in some circumstances though. What we've tried to do is strike the balance between making sure we have enough information to assess the requirements under the Act but making sure that the application process isn't too cumbersome for simple structures and arrangements. The final thing to note is that if you have a pharmacy business with more than one owner, all owners apply jointly for the licence. That is, you complete a single Approved Form 1 and pay a single fee for all the owners.

So just an overview of the Form itself.  The Approved Form 1 has 9 parts to it, but you only need to complete the parts so far as they relate to your application. Everyone will be required to fill in Part A of the Approved Form 1 which captures business details. Everyone will be required to fill in Part B, which is about eligible persons and business arrangements, and also Part C, which is the applicant details.
You'll only need to fill in Part G if you have an authorised representative, such as your lawyer or accountant who's acting on your behalf. And Part I is simply a document checklist to help you in making sure that you've got all of the relevant forms and annexures collated.

You'll see that parts D and E of the Approved Form relate to trusts. You will only need to complete these parts of the Approved Form if you have a trust as part of your structure. Finally, Part F is about material interest holders, particularly those who have an interest in the business that varies with takings or profits. If you don't have any of these arrangements, you won't need to complete those parts of the form.

As you work through your Approved Form 1, you may be directed to complete an annexure. This includes, first of all, Annexure A, which is confirmation of identity. Everyone at some point will need to complete one or more confirmations of identity.
Everyone will also need to complete one of the Annexure C’s. Depending on what your structure is, it might be C(i), C(ii) or C(iii). And again, if you don't have trustees or other material interest holders, you won't need to complete the D, E and F Annexures. You may also be directed to provide supporting documents as you work through the form.  The final thing to note is that applicants, directors and shareholders of corporate applicants will also need to complete a Fit and Proper Persons Details Form.

Getting into the Form itself now, Part A, as I mentioned previously is the pharmacy business details. In this part we're going to gather information to identify the relevant pharmacy business, its location and the services that are provided. You need to complete the business name, ABN and business contact details for the pharmacy business. I just note at this stage that that there is currently a question there about the trading name of the business. From the 1st of November, trading names will no longer appear on ABR register and businesses will need to apply for a registered business name. We decided to leave trading name in there for now in case owners were not aware of this change, but we would encourage you to apply for a business registered business name if you need one. If you do need some more information about that, you can scan the QR code on the right-hand side there.

The next part of Part A, we ask for the address of the premises where the pharmacy business is to be carried on and that should be the physical location and not, for example, a PO Box. You'll also need to provide a document such as a title document, a lease or a transfer of lease etc., to show your entitlement to conduct the business at those premises. We do not require floor plans to be lodged with your application.
You're also asked to declare that the premises meet the standards set out in the Pharmacy Business Ownership Regulation 2025, and you can see the QR code there for that. As I mentioned, we also have a Guidance Note about those standards and I'd encourage you to read those. Overall, Queensland has taken an approach to premises standards that's not prescriptive, but rather fit for purpose. They're intended to be applicable to all pharmacy business contexts.  There are 11 broad requirements in the regulation and I'm just going to highlight a few of those in terms of the premises standards. The first thing to note is that the regulation clarifies that the premises must be a building or structure and can't be, for example, a caravan or a vehicle. You can undertake some pharmacy services such as the administration of vaccines as an outreach service from a caravan or vehicle, but your core pharmacy services, dispensing, compounding and selling of medicines must be from the bricks and mortar location that is the authorised premises.

There is no minimum size to the dispensary area. Again, it must be designed to prevent public access and be of adequate size and designed for the context of your pharmacy business. It must have a temperature monitored refrigerator dedicated to storing medicine and all other necessary equipment. There's no requirement to have a consultation room, but there must be a consultation area for conducting private consultations with customers that is separate to the dispensary and of adequate size and design for the context. There's also a number of standards around security and preventing unauthorised access to the premises, as you'd expect. The final thing to note about the premises standards is that there's a requirement to display the names of the holders of the license to customers at the premises once you receive your licence.

There's a part there that if you are a PBS approved pharmacy, you'll need to note your approval number. And finally for Part A, you'll need to complete the questions about the kinds of services provided or to be provided from the premises.

This information along with other information in the form will help us consider whether to inspect the premises as part of the application or in the future. Selection of inspections will be based on risk, so we won't be inspecting every premises as part of the application process.

We've just recently published a Statement of Regulatory Approach, which you can view by scanning the QR code on the left-hand side there. That will tell you how we're going to approach our regulatory role at a strategic level, and we'll give you more detail about how we'll approach the selection of inspections in in more detail soon.

Moving then to Part B of the Form. This part is aiming to help both us and you identify the types of eligible persons who are applying for a licence and to gather information and documents that are relevant to understanding the business structure and the business arrangements for the pharmacy business. Parts A and B together will also help us to consider the compliance risks that might be associated with the application. If you are a sole applicant, you simply tick the relevant box on the left-hand side whether you're a natural person or a corporation, and then with it, if you're a joint applicant, you will need to select all the relevant categories for you.

I'm now going to start to work through the two very simple examples of a pharmacy business structure, just so that we can demonstrate how to use the form. Structure one is a partnership of two natural persons who are pharmacists and structure two will be a corporation with two directors and shareholders who are all practising pharmacists. In the tick box to the left for structure one, they will need to select natural person and for structure two they will select the second tick box, which is a corporation whose directors and shareholders are practising pharmacists.

Part B continued. This is where we gather some relevant documentation. There's a mandatory requirement to provide an ownership structure diagram which identifies the owners of the business and clarifies relationships such as partnerships and trusts.
Some of these will be simple. Others might be a bit more complicated than that. You're also required to provide a range of other documents, but again, it's only so far as they are relevant to your application. For our structure one, the partnership of the two natural persons, you'll just need to lodge any partnership agreement which exists.  For structure two, at this stage, there's no requirement for additional documents. Just to note some of the other documents which may be relevant for your particular context. If you have a trust arrangement, we require trust deeds, etc. If you are in a franchising arrangement, we will require any franchise agreement, licences or other arrangements to use third-party trademarks, banners, or branding. Then the final lot of documents down the bottom of that page is any other agreement, document or arrangement that may evidence the existence of a material interest or arrangements that may contravene Section 22 of the Act. Examples of the kinds of documents include powers of attorney, service agreements, loans and financing arrangements. But what I do want to note here is that we're not asking everyone to lodge their garden variety loan documents, for example, if it's just a simple loan from the bank. You're only obliged to lodge these where you consider that they may evidence a material interest holder, so someone whose interest varies with takings or profits, or where you believe that there may be a section twenty-two prohibited arrangement which is about the inappropriate control of pharmacy businesses.

Moving now to Part C, which is where we start to gather the applicant details. So again, using structure one, which is our partnership of two natural persons, you can see that C(i) has the heading applicant is a natural person. In this case you would tick yes and then in the box below ‘how many natural persons are making this application’, you'll put two. Each natural person is then directed to complete an Annexure C(i). In Annexure C(i), each of the natural persons will complete their contact details. They're asked about any other ownership interests or material interests that are held, and here they should specify the business name and the address of any other pharmacy business where they have an ownership or material interest. They're also asked to provide their Ahpra registration number for us to check. Then each natural person needs to complete an annexure A – Confirmation of identity and a Fit and Proper Person Details Form.

I'm not going to work through these forms in detail, but again, you can get them from our website and they're downloadable as PDF fillable forms. Each natural person in our structure will need to have their identity verified using Annexure A.
The reason we chose this method of identification is that it avoids the need for you to be sending in copies of your identity documents to us. Instead, what you'll do is you will take this form and your original documents to an approved certifier. That includes lawyers, JPs, Commissioners of Declarations and Ahpra registered health practitioners. They will then certify your identity by sighting your original identity documents. This is much better from a privacy perspective because all you need to provide to us is Annexure A that has been completed and signed by the certifier.

Each natural person also needs to then complete the Fit and Proper Person Details Form. This is where you declare about a range of matters, including things like criminal history, compliance with the Act and any other relevant legislation and whether, for example, there may have been bankruptcy or insolvency.

Looking now at structure two and how to complete Part C. Remember this is our corporation with two directors and shareholders who are practising pharmacists. They will go to Part C(iii) where the heading is ‘applicant is a corporation’. They will tick yes and in ‘how many corporations are making this application’ they will note one. Then the corporation needs to complete an Annexure C(iii). Again, similar to the natural persons, we will collect information that identifies the company name, its ACN, and they'll be asked to provide information about other ownership or material interests. In the eligibility section, in our case, we will tick the first box because all of our directors and shareholders are practicing pharmacists. However, just to note, the other option there is around the situation where you've got directors and shareholders who are a combination of practising pharmacists and close adult relatives.
Once again, we'll then collect some additional information in the Annexure C(iii) about each director and shareholder e.g. contact details and Ahpra registration similar for the natural person. You'll need to attach an ASIC current search for a corporation, and then, as with before, the executive officer for the applicant corporation and each director and shareholder will need to have their identity verified by completing an Annexure A and the corporation’s directors and shareholders will need to complete a Fit and Proper Person Details form.

The final thing to note there is obviously sometimes those persons might be the same person, so the directors and shareholders might be the same people. We don't need you to verify your identity twice or do the Fit and Proper Person Details Form twice.  Just the once will do.

Just a quick look at Parts D, E and F. We don't need to fill them in for our examples, but if you do have a trust structure, you'll need to complete Part D and Annexure D for each trustee applicant.  You'll also need to complete Part E and Annexure E for each beneficiary. In these, you'll also identify the type of trust and be required to provide relevant documents. Each beneficiary then completes the Annexure A, which is the confirmation of identity.

Just those material interest holders who receive consideration that varies according to takings and profits of the business will need to complete Part F and Annexure F and each material interest holder will need to have their identity verified with Annexure A.

If you've gotten to Part G of the Form, you're on the home stretch. In Part G, you provide details of any authorised representative. In Part H, you provide consent to things like the collection and use of your personal information, and you'll also provide declarations about things such as the truth and correctness of the details in the Form. Finally, in Part I, you've a document checklist that you can use to make sure you've got everything that you need to lodge your application.

I also wanted to draw your attention to a great table on page 40 of the Guidance Note that summarises the requirements for the different kinds of applicants.

If we're talking about structure one, where we've got the natural persons, we're looking at row one of this table and working left to right, the applicants will need to complete Part A, B, C and H of the Approved Form 1, Annexure A- Confirmation of identity for each person,  Annexure C(i) for each person, and the Fit and Proper Person Details Form for each person. They will need to include documents showing their entitlement to run the pharmacy from the authorised premises, a business structure diagram and any partnership agreement.

For structure two, the corporation, we're looking at rows two to six of this table, and in summary, the corporation will complete parts A, B, C and H of Approved Form 1.
The corporation and each director and shareholder will complete their parts of Annexure C(iii). The executive officer, directors and shareholders confirm their identity using Annexure A and the corporation, directors and shareholder complete a Fit and Proper Person Details Form. They will need to include documents showing their entitlement to run the pharmacy from the authorised premises, a business structure diagram, and a current ASIC search.

That sort of completes our summary of what's required for those two simple examples. Obviously, the more complex the structure, the more forms or more parts of the form that you'll need to complete.  Once you've completed your Approved Form 1, Annexures and supporting documents, and your Fit and Proper Details Person form, in a moment I'm going to hand over to Jane, who's going to explain how you can lodge your application with Council and pay the fee.

The last thing that I wanted to note was that we've had some licensing and compliance staff commence with us over the last couple of weeks. Eimear, Leisha and Suzanne, who are all here tonight, have been busy fielding your calls and emails which are coming through already.  Brenton, who many of you who will know already quite well, will be joining the team on the 1st of November.

We've been really impressed by enthusiastic people registering already for Kiteworks and we will provide that link to you as soon as licensing commences so that you can upload your applications ASAP from that date. The other thing I wanted to do was to thank Jane and the ICT team for the enormous amount of work that they've done to make sure we have this interim solution available to us from the commencement of licensing. I also wish to thank Kirsten and the amazing project team for all their work in getting us to this point. The Council and I are certainly most grateful to all of you. Jane's now going to take you through how you lodge your application and pay your fees.
Thanks Jane, and over to you.

Jane Van-Eyk  
Thanks Nat, and good evening, everyone. I'm going to take you through how to apply for a licence via the Council's website. Hopefully some of you have had a look around the Council's website already. If you navigate to the ‘apply for a licence’ page,
you'll see there is eight clear steps to follow, and Nat has just stepped you through steps one to four. I'll speak in a bit more detail about steps five to eight. After preparing the application, you'll need to register on the website, using your name, e-mail, business name and address, to be able to securely upload your application via Kiteworks.  This is step five in the process. Kiteworks is a secure file transfer pathway, so you can be assured that the information that you're submitting to the Council is handled appropriately. After registering the name, e-mail, business name and address you will be sent a Kiteworks link via the e-mail address that you've supplied, with information specifying how to upload your application. That's step six in the process. The e-mail address that you'll be sent this link from is  applications@pboc.qld.gov.au.

To support efficient assessment and processing of your application, you should upload your documents to the Kiteworks website in a single upload rather than uploading documents intermittently. Providing the full set of documents at once helps avoid delays and reduces the risk of missing documents, I did see a chat pop up earlier about whether there is a size limit that can be uploaded to Kiteworks.
The answer to that is no. Submitting your application and supporting documents, should not exceed any file limit within Kiteworks itself.

Following this, the Council will e-mail you to advise you what fee you must pay for your application. That's step seven in the process. You must pay the fee via B Point. Please ensure that you keep a copy of your receipt for your records as well.
The fees are set out in the Pharmacy Business Ownership Regulation 2025 in fee units and the licence and renewal application fees vary based on the complexity of the ownership structure. Information on the tiers and fees can be found on the Council's website under the heading ’fees’ or you can scan QR code in the slides. We've provided the fees in fee units with corresponding dollar amounts for you on the website.

The Council may require further information to decide your application for a pharmacy business licence. That's step eight in the process. If the council does require further information, the Council will e-mail you with a request for information. This is a process which is facilitated and permitted under the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024.

After steps 1 to 8 have been completed, the Council will assess and decide your application.  That's all I wanted to share with you tonight. I'd really encourage you to have a look at the Council's website if you haven't already, because there's a lot of useful information up there for you to have a look at. Thanks very much, Cameron.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you, Jane. Appreciate it. Look, we've got about 20 minutes now. I thought we flew through that. We've got plenty of time for questions and thanks to those who've already submitted questions through the chat function. I'll just start off with one that I saw come through earlier, which was is the application fee paid by each applicant or is the application fee per pharmacy business? There's only the one application fee per pharmacy business. It doesn't relate to each individual applicant. And as we've mentioned before, there's a tier of application fees based on the complexity of the ownership structure.  A related question is what is the difference between an application fee and the licence fee? There are two fees. An application fee is the payment made when you submit your application for the purpose of assessing it and processing it. That's non-refundable. The licence fee, on the other hand, is paid once your application's been approved and that's the cost of issuing and maintaining your licence. That's the smaller amount. Obviously, the larger amount is the processing of the application. Then there's a smaller licence fee that is paid thereafter. Think of it like your driver's licence. You take the test, that's your application, you pay for that, and then once you receive your licence, you pay the licence fee.
I'm going to refer now to questions that have come through. I've got a few questions here and I'll pass over to relevant people who'll be able to answer those as we go through. The first question was one for Natalie to answer.

The form has a question asking if the owner has any pharmacies apart from the pharmacy that is being applied for. Do we list pharmacies in Queensland only or do we list other states as well?

Natalie Wakefield  
Thanks, Cameron. In the Approved Form itself, that particular question is aimed at identifying ownership interests and material interests in Queensland. At that part you should only list the pharmacies where you have ownership and material interests in pharmacies in Queensland. But I will just note that in the Fit and Proper Person Details Form there is a section which where you do need to indicate whether you own pharmacies in other jurisdictions, and it will ask about your compliance record with those jurisdictions. For example, if you've had a licence cancelled, suspended, conditions applied etc. I hope that answers the question.

Cameron Foote  
Thanks, Natalie. Probably another one for you, and this is one I think a few of us have have had over the last couple of months is what's the estimated turnaround time for processing and approving of applications? What's your thoughts?

Natalie Wakefield  
Obviously that's very difficult for us to predict in a start-up environment. Legislatively, there are no time limits imposed on Council to make a decision about a licence. But one thing we're cognisant of is the impact on businesses.
The approach that we'll be taking is to help people very much to complete their applications as quickly as they can and also to work on priorities based on need. We're really aware of the fact that if you're an existing owner of an existing business, if you make application, you're able to continue merrily along your way. Whereas if you've got transactions or a new pharmacy business, obviously there are impacts in terms of either not being able to complete a transaction or not being able to commence operations in the case of a of a new business. What we are going to try and do is to prioritise not necessarily sequentially but based on those sorts of considerations.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you, Natalie. We have a question here which I think is relevant to the identification documents. When we're talking about Ahpra registered practitioners for the purpose of certifying identification documents, does that person need to be independent? That is not a pharmacist who is part of the pharmacy applying for the licence?

Natalie Wakefield  
I would encourage you to look at the at the Guidance Notes where there is further information about who the certifiers can be. However, they can't be the applicant or have a familial relationship with the person, so you need to get someone who's outside of the application to do that certification for you.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you.
Yeah, of course. I think we've got a few people confused about what does an ownership diagram looks like? And clearly, you know, you've said if it's obviously a sole trader or a partnership, it's going to be pretty simple. You can just put a diagram on a page with the two of you but please give us some examples of what you think people are going to have to come up with.

Natalie Wakefield  
I think the people who are going to be drawing complex diagrams will likely be completing their applications through their advisors, so they should be able to help you with what that should look like. But effectively we're wanting a diagram that identifies the owners of the business, and it should also identify the relationships between those owners. It should identify things like partnerships and any ownership interests which are held on trust, including the name of the relevant trust.

Cameron Foote  
Kirsten, welcome. Thank you. Is a friendly society one of the corporate structures that will benefit from the two-year transition period?

Kirsten Law  
Hi, Cameron.
The two-year transitional period applies to corporations who have arrangements that were permitted to operate under the 2001 Act, but they're not going to be permitted under the 2024 Act. So that two-year transitional gives people extra time because we know they have to restructure their corporate arrangements, which is obviously complex. The transitional applies to a corporation that has a corporate shareholder, or a corporate beneficiary and definition is in I think section 214 of the 2024 Act. I'd encourage you to have a look at that carefully. Obviously, I can't speak to what the structure of a friendly society looks like, but it would only have that two-year transitional if it has corporate shareholders or corporate beneficiaries.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. With regards to the part of the form that requires us to fill in services, there's a question that relates to is therapeutic nicotine, is it just vapes or things like the gums and patches as well?
Kirsten.

Kirsten Law  
Yeah, sure. I'm happy to talk to that. The Medicines and Poisons (Medicines) Regulation 2021 defines therapeutic nicotine as nicotine in a therapeutic vaping good.  The Regulation also refers to the Therapeutic Good Regulation 1990 (Cwth).

Cameron Foote
Thank you. I've had a few recent questions about obviously there's been some recent changes to the Act. Kirsten, you're probably the most appropriate person to talk about that because not everyone may be across these recent changes. Is it possible to give a quick summary in your opinion as to what that looks like?

Kirsten Law  
Yeah, sure. The Health Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) 2025 made a number of changes to the Act, and most are aimed at improving the legislation and making sure it operates as intended. A couple of the key changes. The legislation will ensure that a business that sells medicines by or under the supervision of pharmacist will be required to be licensed under the Act, regardless of whether they dispense or compound medicines as well. The amendments also clarify that a shareholder of a corporate owner can only hold their shares on trust for another person if that person is a practising pharmacist or the close adult relative of a practising pharmacist. If you're holding shares on trust for a corporate owner, you will be a material interest holder under the Act. There have been some changes to the timeframes in which we request information and inspections. Previously there was a requirement that any requests for information had to be made in the within 30 days after an application has been made. That's been removed just to give the Council flexibility to ensure that it can get all the information it needs to make a considered decision.
Finally, probably the other one to note is that the Council is now required to keep a register of licensed pharmacy businesses on its website. That will include the details of the licence holders and the status of the licence.
We won't be requiring the Council to include the details of services that each pharmacy business provides because we recognise that's both a burden for the Council and a burden for owners to make sure that's current. So those are probably the key changes that are relevant.

Cameron Foote  
Kirsten, while we're on the matter of legislation, you're probably the most appropriate person to look at this one too. This came through the chat. Can the beneficiary of a trust structure be a corporation with the sole shareholders of the company being a practising pharmacist and their close adult relatives?

Kirsten Law  
I think the short answer is that the beneficiary of a trust can only be a natural person.

The most important messaging is that if you are a beneficiary of a trust that will make you a material interest holder, and you can only be a material interest holder if you are a natural person, because you have to be either a practising pharmacist or a close adult relative. You can't have a corporation as a beneficiary, even if the shareholders are all natural people, that's not permitted anymore.

Cameron Foote  
Well, let's move on to an operational question for Natalie. Can I lodge my application early? It's good to say that people might be thinking about going early because we do have a a window of opportunity to get it done.

Natalie Wakefield  
Unfortunately not. We did look at whether this was possible. But because the Act doesn't commence until the 1st of November, you're not able to actually make any declarations under the Act, which you're required to do in the Approved Form until the 1st of November. From that date you can fire away as we said.

We will action those Kiteworks registrations on the 1st of November so that people can lodge those applications as soon as possible. By all means you can be completing your forms and getting your identities verified and all of that now and be ready.
To lodge it straight away on the 1st of November if you like.

Cameron Foote  
OK, thank you. We had a question from our audience. Do close adult relatives include parents? Natalie.

Natalie Wakefield
Short answer is no, they do not.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. One I've been asked outside of this forum was regarding franchise agreements, which we spoke about earlier, making sure that they're put in. Can a template franchise agreement be submitted for pre-approval?

Natalie Wakefield  
It is probably late in the day for that anyway. But the best approach is to submit these once licensing commences and we can then consider all of the information as part of the application.
You know, the nature of regulation is such that if we, you know, if the initial franchising arrangement does comply with the Act and subsequent ones are the same, the nature of regulation is you would expect to see the same outcome.

Cameron Foote   53:31
Wonderful. Thank you. There's been a little bit of discussion around the premises legislation and in particular consultation rooms does a pharmacy need to have a consultation room under the new regulations. Kirsten, would you be the most appropriate person to speak to that one?

Kirsten Law  
Yeah, sure. I'm happy to speak to that. There's no requirement in the premises standards for each pharmacy business to have a consultation room like a fully private enclosed consultation room. But the pharmacy must have an area where pharmacists can hold private and confidential discussions with their customers. It must be an area that's designed to ensure conversations can't be overheard and the medicines and documents can't be seen by other people. And it must be an area that's free from interruption, so away from the main thoroughfare, and include things like privacy screens or other arrangements that will give some protection.

I'd also note that pharmacy business owners would have to consider their existing premises requirements that might be required under the Medicines and Poisons legislation as well. So those are separate to the Pharmacy Business Ownership premises standards. That's the requirements that are in the standards in relation to consultation areas. I'd encourage you to take a look at the Guidance Note on the premises standards as well.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. The questions that came through, how do we advise we have corporate beneficiaries of a trust, or do we automatically get two years to apply?

Natalie Wakefield  
You don't need to tell us in advance. We will obviously track applications as they come through. I think the approach that we will take is towards the end of the first year, we will probably write to people who haven't yet made application just to make sure that they're not going to miss their cut off. I'd probably say too that if you are going to apply in the second year, you should be prepared to provide evidence that you were in fact entitled to that transition period at the at the point of that application.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. On an operational note, there's a question here Natalie, about the Kite Works program that we're looking at using the portal to transfer information to Council. There's a note here that I've registered for KiteWorks, but I haven't got a link for Kite Works. Would that be correct?

Natalie Wakefield  
Yes. That is correct. As I think I mentioned before, we've actually had about twenty-five people register to use the Kiteworks application. Because the Act doesn't commence until the 1st of November, we are not providing the link to you right now, but we will provide it to you on the 1st of November. We'll be busily sending out those links on the 1st of November.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. There's a question here. I have a question about the Medicines and Poisons Act 2019 and associate regs. Should I contact Council about that from now on?

Kirsten Law  
No, it's important to confirm that the Council's scope is to administer the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024. Queensland Health will continue to regulate the medicines and poisons legislation. If you have questions about medicines and poisons, you know things relating to storage of medicines etc., those should be continue to be directed to Queensland Health to the usual channels, normally the Medicines Approvals and Regulation Unit.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you. Natalie, how can I contact the Council for assistance if I need help completing my application?

Natalie Wakefield  
We are ready to receive your questions. You can contact us on our e-mail address, which is applications@pboc.qld.gov.au or on 0733256200.

Cameron Foote  
Wonderful. Given the time, we might close off our Q&A section this evening just for the moment. If there's any questions that we didn't answer, we'll endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible and obviously you'll get a copy of all of the slides for everyone who's registered.

Thanks again for joining us today. There are two calls to action from me. One is to make sure you review the Act and take some time to have a look at our website. Our website is a great resource. It's obviously got the forms, it's got premises standards, it's got our policies and procedures, heaps of governance requirements, a strategic plan, etc. And it's being added to every week. So please take time to review the Act and get familiar with our website.

The fact that you've registered for the webinar tonight, you'll already be subscribed to receive Council updates. However, we encourage you to share that with your network to make sure that we cast that net further.
The second thing I want you to make sure you do is seek professional advice. I only learnt recently with the current applications through Queensland Health, 80% of the applications come through advisors being solicitors and accountants.  I would have thought that with this process, those people are going to be extremely important. They will be busy. Please be mindful. Don't leave it to the last minute to get your application in because the people you may want to represent you may be too busy to represent you. Please act now, seek professional advice. That's all from us this evening. On behalf of Council, thank you for your participation and we look forward to continuing this journey with you.
See you then. Bye now.

Cameron Foote
Welcome everybody to our webinar this evening providing an update on the Pharmacy Business Ownership Act 2024 presented by Queensland Health and the Queensland Pharmacy Business Ownership Council. Thanks for allowing us to speak to you this evening.

Good evening and welcome everybody. My name is Cameron Foote. I'm the Chair of the Queensland Pharmacy Business Ownership Council and I'll be facilitating this evening's session. I'd like to firstly begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet today. For me, that's Brisbane, Meanjin.
And I'd like to pay respects to the Elders, past and present, of the Jagera and Turrbal people.

So, what are we trying to cover off on this evening? Firstly, we'd like to provide an overview of the legislation and talk about some of the proposed changes. Some of you may have already heard this before, but there's going to be plenty of you who haven't. Secondly, we'd like to share information about licencing which will be commencing later this year. The third thing we want to discuss is what you should be doing now to prepare.

So, you'll hear from me this evening. You'll also hear from a couple of other people contributing this evening. The first you'll hear from is our Council's inaugural CEO, Natalie Wakefield. You'll also hear from Kirsten Law, who is the Director of the Pharmacy Business Ownership Implementation Unit of Queensland Health.

So, who is Natalie, our CEO? Natalie holds a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Commerce and a certificate in mediation and commenced her four-year term as CEO on 16 June 2025. Natalie is an experienced regulator and policy executive, most recently as an Executive Director in the Industrial Relations Division, the Office of Industrial Relations where she was responsible for overseeing Queensland's IR legislation, policy, regulatory and advisory functions. Natalie also has over 20 years’ experience in the Queensland Revenue Office with taxation, where she's gained significant experience with business structures. She led the introduction of Australia's first labour hire scheme in Queensland and was then seconded to Victoria to work in Victoria's Labour Hire Authority, which is a very similar to our statutory body.

Kirsten Law has been the Director of the Pharmacy Business Ownership Implementation Unit since March of 2024. Prior to this person she was the Director of the Legislative Policy Unit of Queensland Health, which led to the development of the Act.

Now during this evening, you're more than welcome to submit questions using the chat function. We've got a couple of people who are observing those for you. We'll try and get to answer as many as we can through our session this evening. We probably won't get to answer all of them, but we will endeavour to get back to each one of you at some stage. Today's webinar is also going to be recorded. It'll be made available online on our Council website in due course. If you want to rehash over it, please just a note tonight we are not your legal representatives. We can't provide you specific legal advice. So please refrain from asking specific questions to your individual circumstances. The information from tonight's webinar will contain general information and guidance.

Before I hand over to Natalie and Kirsten, I want to introduce myself and my role at Council. I've been a pharmacy owner since 1995 with a Foote Pharmacy Group based in Ipswich. I've represented industry bodies, including the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority and the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network. I'm the Chair of the Council alongside nine other members with a wealth of experience in pharmacy, financial management, law and governance. As you can see, we have a board of 10 member, 9 pharmacists and of those pharmacists, the majority being pharmacy owners.

Since the Council's establishment in September of 2024, we've been working really hard with the support of Queensland Health to put in place essential governance and operational frameworks. This foundational work has been critical to ensuring we're equipped to deliver our key responsibilities with integrity and transparency. As we've got a number of pharmacists on the Council who will be actively seeking licences themselves, we clearly need to organise a robust conflict of interest and confidentiality framework that will protect the information that Council obtains and holds. We're in the process of getting management plans approved through the Integrity Commissioner at the moment.

Our strategic plan, which we just completed, reflects our shared vision, purpose and strategic objectives that will guide our work over the coming years, and I encourage you to have a look at it on our Council website.

What should you be doing to get ready for November? This is my advice. Clearly the first thing I'd be doing is make sure that you use pharmacy specific specialists, lawyers and accountants who understand and have taken an active interest in our new legislation and in my opinion, should have already been getting advice on your business structures. I would advise that you don't leave it too late to put in your applications. Our group has already sought advice on our structures and potential changes, including the trusts that we have. We've considered how they may impact on agreements such ownership, bank guarantees and covenants. These specialist lawyers and accountants, in my opinion, are going to be very busy next year. When I was on the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority more than 90% of the applications that were put forward were by representatives of pharmacists.

Pharmacists in general are time poor. We're not fantastic administrators.
There will be the requirement to fill out some quite detailed forms and collate information from other sources, and sometimes the best people to source that information for you are going to be your advisors. Don't leave it too late to engage your advisors to help you with these things. They are going to be very busy next year and they if you don't engage them early, they may not be able to help you at the end.

I'll now hand over to our inaugural CEO, Natalie Wakefield. Natalie's appointment has been an important milestone for Council. We're really excited to have her on board. She's only been with us for a couple of she's making fantastic inroads, and she's really got across things. So welcome and thanks. Over to you, Natalie.

Natalie Wakefield  
Thanks Cameron for that really kind introduction and I really appreciate everyone making the effort to attend this evening to learn more about your obligations under the new legislation. The pharmacy sector has such an important role in all of our communities and I'm really looking forward to working with you all in the countdown to the kick-off of licencing on the 1st of November.  So Cameron's outlined some of the activities that Council has been undertaking to date and you can expect really that our next tranche of activities will involve embedding best practice regulatory approaches in preparation obviously for our licencing and compliance activities. We'll be particularly focused on making sure that all QLD pharmacies have all of the information that they need, so that they know what they need to do, and when they need to do it, and how they need to do it.
Obviously we're still bedding down some of the finer details, but we're really committed to making sure that we do provide those finer details to you as soon as possible. We really want you to be well equipped to be confident in making your application.

I'd also echo Cameron's sentiment about seeking advice regarding your particular circumstances and what you might need to do to comply with the Act in relation to your particular business as soon as possible. I think we'd really hate to see anyone miss out on getting the advice they need to either make their application or make changes in preparation for the commencement of licencing. The only other thing I'd like to say is that we'll obviously be continuously improving. We're on a continuous improvement journey with the Council. We're very new and things won't be perfect at the outset. We'll be building as we go, and we're very committed to receiving your feedback and to working with you collaboratively to improve as we go along the journey.
The last thing I'd like to say tonight is a really sincere thank you to Kirsten and the project team for the enormous and outstanding work that they've done in getting us to this position. We've certainly got a really good launching pad to proceed and that wouldn't have been the case without such a fantastic project team so thanks to Kirsten and the team.  That's a good segue for me to hand over now to Kirsten, who's going to present the main program tonight around the legislation. And I just want to say thank you again for the really warm welcome that I've received from everyone so far. And I'm really looking forward to working with you all going forward. Thanks.

Kirsten Law  
Thanks, Natalie, and thank you for the opportunity to present tonight and I really appreciate everyone taking the time out of their evenings to be here. Some of you may well be familiar with the information I'm about to cover, but we did feel it was important to revisit the background and core components of the Act to make sure we all have a shared understanding as we move forward.

This is the timeline of where we've been, it has been a bit of a journey for those who've been involved. The Act arose out of a 2018 parliamentary committee inquiry into pharmacy business ownership and that parliamentary committee receives strong stakeholder feedback that the current legislation, the 2001 Act, was out of date and the sector needed modern and contemporary legislation to regulate pharmacy business ownership. There was significant stakeholder consultation during development of the Bill. Queensland Health provided two consultation drafts of the legislation to all pharmacy business owners as well as other key stakeholders, and in March 2024, the 2024 Act was passed by Parliament. That Act is commencing in stages as we implement the legislation. The licencing framework and all remaining parts of the Act are expected to commence in November 2025. The commencement date will be fixed later in the year by Governor in Council, and that's subject to a government process, but we are expecting it to be in November.
Turning to the objectives of the Act, the Act maintains and protects the community pharmacy model. It maintains the current ownership restrictions so that pharmacies are predominantly owned by pharmacists or pharmacists-controlled corporations.
Under the legislation, all pharmacy businesses in Queensland will need to be licenced and licences will need to be renewed on an annual basis. The Act provides greater clarity about who can and who cannot hold an interest in a pharmacy business, so that control of the pharmacy business remains in the hand of the community pharmacies.

In a key change from the current legislation, the Act creates the Queensland Pharmacy Business Ownership Council as a separate statutory body that will operate independent independently of Queensland Health. Responsibility for regulating pharmacy business ownership will transfer from Queensland Health to the Council when licencing commences later this year. The Council will be responsible for granting and removing licences and it has broad legislative powers to gather information and enforce compliance. In 2023, Government committed 9.84 million over four years for implementation of the Act including establishing the Council.  Ultimately, the Council is expected to be self-funded from licencing fees.

Moving now to some of the key concepts in the legislation. The Act more clearly defines what is a pharmacy business and therefore needs to be licenced under the Act. A business will be a pharmacy business for the purposes of this Act if it provides pharmacy services in Queensland, and those pharmacy services include either: compounding for medicines for sale to the public, or dispensing medicines to the public, by or under the supervision of a practising pharmacist. I wanted to flag that in May this year the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services introduced the Health Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) into Parliament. The Bill proposes a number of changes to the Act to clarify provisions, including a change to the definition of core pharmacy service. If that Bill is passed by Parliament, it would mean that a business must be licenced under the Act if it involves a pharmacist selling medicine such as schedule 2 or schedule 3 medicines, even if the business doesn't compound or dispense. There's a QR code on the screen where you can get more information about that Bill.

We just wanted to flag that we know that pharmacy businesses provide a range of important services beyond just compounding, selling and dispensing medicines. However, the definition of core pharmacy services is deliberately narrower to avoid capturing businesses that employ pharmacists as part of a multidisciplinary team like medical practices, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations and aged care facilities.

Who is eligible to own a pharmacy business? This was an area where we know that the previous Act was not as clear as it could be, and so the 2024 Act clarifies who can own a pharmacy business in Queensland. Only an eligible person can apply to hold a pharmacy licence and the people who are eligible are set out on the screen:

a practising pharmacist (a practising pharmacist, is a person who's registered under the national law to practise in the pharmacy profession with general registration),
a corporation, but only if the corporation is controlled by pharmacists. That is, all of the directors and shareholders are practising pharmacists, or all the directors and shareholders are practising pharmacists or the close adult relatives of those practising pharmacists, and the practising pharmacists hold the majority of the shares and all of the voting shares. You'll just see on the bottom of the screen that a close adult relative of a practising pharmacist means either the spouse or a child of the pharmacist who is an adult. The 2024 Act maintains the provisions that enable friendly societies and the Mater to own pharmacies as well.

The Act introduces a new concept of a material interest holder.  The 2001 Act doesn't distinguish between the interest of an owner of the business or a lesser interest such as that of a shareholder or beneficiary of a trust. The 2024 Act makes clear that people who have a lesser interest are a material interest holder and it sets out who is eligible to hold a material interest in the business. A material interest is the interest of a shareholder, the interest of a beneficiary of a trust where the owner of the business is a trustee of the trust, or a person who is not an owner, that holds another interest in the business that entitles them to receive consideration that varies according to the profits and takings of the business.

The only people who can hold a material interest in a pharmacy business are practising pharmacists or close adult relatives of a practising pharmacist who has an interest in that business. The Bill I mentioned earlier also proposes to amend the definition of material interest to clarify that if a shareholder holds their shares on trust for another person, the beneficiary will be a material interest holder. This means that a shareholder cannot hold their shares on trust for another person unless that person is a pharmacist or the close adult relative of a pharmacist.

The Act provides that a person must not hold an interest in more than five pharmacies, and an interest includes both an ownership interest and a material interest. Friendly societies and the Mater can continue to hold an interest in up to six pharmacies.

Turning to the Pharmacy Business Ownership Regulation. A pharmacy business licence can only be granted if the premises for the business is an authorised premises. The Council will need to be satisfied that the premises complies with the premises standard and that the premises are not located in, or directly accessible from, a supermarket. The requirement around supermarkets aligns with most other Australian jurisdictions.

The Pharmacy Business Ownership Regulation hasn't been made yet, but it will prescribe the standards that premises need to be authorised premises.  In developing the draft premises standards, we carefully reviewed premises standards of other jurisdictions, we looked at the requirements under existing legislation such as the Medicines and Poisons Act 2019 and the Public Health Act 2005. We considered the Pharmacy Board of Australia's guidelines, the PSA’s Professional Practice Standards and looked carefully at the Quality Care Community Pharmacy Program standards. Hopefully you have seen that draft regulation as part of the recent Queensland Health consultation process. There is a QR code on the screen that will take you to that previous consultation draft if you'd like to have a look at it. Just note that this version reflects what was put out for consultation. We are updating the Regulation to reflect stakeholder feedback received. We expect that that Regulation will commence at the same time as the remainder of the Act in November this year.

Fees will apply for applications made under the Act, for example, applications for a pharmacy business licence. Those fees were also included in the consultation paper, so you can see more information there. The proposed fees for a licence will vary the depending on the complexity of the ownership structure. There is a tiered system. The Regulation will prescribe fees in what is called fee units. Those fee units are indexed each year in line with the government's indexation rate.
You'll see on the screen that the fees for an initial licence are a little higher than the fees for a renewal and the annual renewal fee will range from $1758 to $2585 depending on the complexity of your business structure.

Section 22 of the Act may be of particular interest, so I just wanted to talk through that one. That section deals with third party control of a pharmacy business. The provision makes clear that a contract agreement or arrangement with a third party cannot do or purport to do any of the following: control how pharmacy services involving medicines are provided to the public, restrict the types of medicines or health services the business may provide, require a medicine to be bought from a particular supplier or impose a sale sales target for a particular medicine. This provision doesn't apply to an employee, or if a requirement is only about, for example, opening hours, advertising, branding, product displays, marketing activities.
IT, staff training or uniforms. There are a number of consequences under the Act if you have this type of provision in an agreement or arrangement for your business. The first is that the provision itself will be void. Secondly, the third party who is a
party to the contract or agreement, may commit an offence and that offence carries a 200-penalty unit fine. Also, having that type of provision in a contract or agreement may impact the owner's ability to obtain a licence, as the Council may find that the owner is not a fit and proper person to hold a licence.  I would encourage you to carefully consider relevant agreements like franchise agreements to see whether you may have any clauses that might fall within section 22.

When do you need to apply for a licence? The timing will depend on whether you are an existing business operating under the 2001 Act or a new business. Any new pharmacy business from the date the new 2024 legislation commences will need to hold a pharmacy business licence before the business starts operating. Existing businesses will have additional time to apply and obtain a licence. Most current owners will have to apply for a licence within one year from the date the licencing commences. Owners will be able to apply for a licence at any time during that year. The Council will take time to consider and decide each licence application based on criteria under the Act and as long as a current owner has applied for a licence by the end of that that one year period the owner won't commit an offence for failing to hold a licence, while the Council's considering their application.

Under part 14 of the Act, there are transitional provisions which provide some existing owners with two years in which to apply for a licence. These provisions only apply to existing owners who meet certain eligibility requirements. This includes existing corporate owners who have corporate shareholders or corporate beneficiaries within a trust arrangement. Those arrangements are not permitted under the new Act so that extra year allows those businesses time to change their ownership structures to comply with the legislation. If you think you might fall into those categories, I'd recommend that you consider the transitional provisions carefully to make sure they apply to your business.
In terms of the application process, the Council may request additional information from the applicant and may also ask to inspect the proposed premises. A fee may apply where the Council inspects the premises.

The Council will also consider whether the applicant is a fit and proper person to hold a pharmacy licence and section 72 of the Act sets out a list of criteria that the Council must consider in deciding if a person is a fit and proper person.

A licence can be granted for a term of up to one year, so the licence will need to be renewed each year.

There will be a single pharmacy business licence issued for each business, and if there's more than one owner, all owners will apply jointly to the Council to obtain the licence.

When the Act commences, the Council is required to keep a register of licenced pharmacy businesses in Queensland and the Bill that I referred to earlier proposes to amend the Act to require that the Council must publish that register on its website.

I also just wanted to touch on the duty exemption that's in place. In October 2024 the Queensland Revenue Office published a public ruling setting up the terms of an administrative arrangement to provide an exemption from transfer duty, landholder duty and corporate trustee duty for businesses making changes to comply with the ownership and interest requirements under the new Act. This administrative arrangement applies to eligible pharmacy business transactions and acquisitions where the liability for duty arises on or after the 1st of January of this year and within the period stated in the ruling. there's a QR code that will enable you to access that ruling from the Queensland Revenue Office's website. Again, I'd recommend that you carefully review that and consider how it might apply to your business.

That's the end of the material I'm covering. I'll just hand back to Cameron, who we will turn to some questions.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you, Kirsten. Thanks for your informative presentation. I'd also like to thank a couple of people we've got working in the background going through our questions. Nicole Floyd and Carol Calderbank have been really pivotal in getting tonight's webinar up and running as well. I've had three questions come through to me. I might start off with the first one.

Will the application forms be able to be completed online? What information will need to be provided?

Short answer is yes, they will be able to be completed online and yes information will need to be provided, but confirmation on that information is still to come. The Council is going through a process of looking at a suitable IT system for our longer-term requirements. In the interim, applications are going to be a little bit more labour intensive and manual, and I appreciate people's patience to start with. I believe there's going to be about 11 approved forms and drafts have been presented to the Council members. They're looking pretty good, and they will be available as soon as possible on our website. I do encourage you to go to our website and review that regularly.

The second question I had come through, which is probably more appropriate for Natalie to answer.

What happens if I want to open a new pharmacy business? How long will it take to be granted a licence?

Natalie Wakefield  
Thanks Cameron. Kirsten has mentioned new pharmacy business applications and that the licence needs to be granted before they can commence operations. The short answer is that there's no time limit on Council specifically under the Act in terms of how long they have to decide an application. But obviously we'll be very cognisant of the flow on effects for a new business of the grant of the licence, such as gaining PBS approval and confirming lease arrangements, etc. We'll be making efforts to prioritise appropriately the applications that we receive.

Cameron Foote  
Thanks Natalie. I've have a third one that's come through.

Can a template franchise agreement be submitted for pre-approval?

Natalie Wakefield  
I guess for us it is possible for you to provide examples of the franchise agreements and that's very helpful to the Council in understanding the types of arrangements that are out there. But specifically, under the Act, there is no capacity for Council to make any form of binding decision on a template agreement prior to licencing commencing, so our preference would be that we would make that decision in the course of the licencing application. So once licencing commences in November, we would consider the franchise agreement in the context of all of the information provided. The nature of regulation is such that once a decision is made on a particular type of franchise arrangement, it would be very likely that a similar outcome would apply to other franchisees having the same arrangements, noting within their own context. But yes, you can give it to us, and we'd be interested from an intelligence perspective to understand the types of arrangements that are out there but in terms of any binding decision about a franchise arrangement that would wait until licencing kicks off.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you, Natalie. Kirsten, have you got any further questions that have come through on the chat from your end?

Kirsten Law  
I've got a couple here that I'm happy to run through if that works.

If a company owns a number of pharmacies, is the annual fee paid per store or per company?

The fee is a fee for each business and a business can only operate from one premises. It's a single fee, no matter how many owners you have, but it is one fee per premises. If your company has an interest in a number of businesses, you will need to have a licence for each of those businesses and pay that fee for each business.

Will Queensland be a co regulatory environment similar to NSW?

No, it won't be similar to NSW and there's a couple of ways to interpret that. I think just in terms of pharmacy business ownership regulation, responsibility will be handed over entirely from Queensland health to the Council, so the Council will be the single entity responsible for regulating pharmacy business ownership in Queensland. The NSW system is a co regulatory approach with the health practitioner complaints body. The Council will not have that arrangement.

The Office of Health Ombudsman (OHO) and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) will continue to manage health practitioner complaints in Queensland. The Council will also work collaboratively with Queensland Health's medicines regulatory team as well as OHO and AHPRA, but they will be it will be a different arrangement to NSW.

Should we lodge an application before November, and will there be a grace period?

I think I've covered that a little bit, but just to clarify, we're expecting the licencing scheme to commence in November. You won't be able to apply for a licence before that commences. If you're a new business, you'll need to apply before you can start operating. Those existing businesses will have one year to apply or two years, depending on their particular arrangements. As discussed, I'd suggest you seek advice if you're unsure about how long you have to apply there in terms of whether those transitional arrangements apply to you.

Will the premises standards contradict QCPP requirements?

We have been very careful in developing the premises standards to ensure that they complement and support existing requirements wherever possible. The premises standards will be a legislative standard that you must comply with in order to obtain a licence in Queensland.
I don't think there'll be things that are directly contradictory in those documents, but the premises standards will be the ones that you need to meet in order to obtain a licence.  I'd encourage you to have a look at the consultation draft. The standards have been designed to be something that can be applied in all types of pharmacy businesses across Queensland, whether you're rural, regional or in an urban area, a large pharmacy, small pharmacy, regardless of the types of services you're providing.

We've sought feedback to understand what businesses are able to comply with.
I'd encourage you to have a look at those and hopefully that gives you some reassurance that that you shouldn't need to make extensive changes in order to comply with those.

What if a practising pharmacist dies? Can you know a son or daughter continue to own the pharmacy?

If you have a single licence holder and that that owner dies, then the licence will cease to have effect. If there's more than one person on the licence, the Council must be notified and the Council will remove that person as a licence holder.
Section 83 of the Act deals with the scenario where an owner of a licenced pharmacy business dies, so the executor administrator or trustee may be able to continue the business for a short period of time. I think there are similar provisions in place under the current legislation as well.

Can the fee be reviewed for a small rural chemist?

The fees in the legislation have been set up to reflect the complexity of the business structure rather than the location or type of premises. That's based on Queensland government policy that fees should reflect cost recovery and so the more complex your ownership structure, the more work involved for the Council to review and process that application.
The simpler application will have a lower tiered fee and a more complex ownership structure will have a higher fee, reflecting the workload involved.

When will guidance be available?

We're working on that information now.  You can be added to our Queensland Health communications list to get updates by e-mail.

We will be providing more guidance material on the Council's website over the coming months.

Natalie Wakefield  
There is a question around inspection of premises.

Like a lot of things, we're developing our regulatory approach with inspections. It's fair to say it'll be similar to other jurisdictions. An inspection might occur on an application, it might be routine inspections based on a cycle.

It could be in response to a complaint or there could be targeted inspections. We'll be taking a risk-based approach to all of our compliance activities. We'll provide more information about our approach as it comes to hand as well.

Kirsten Law  
Will there be any changes for the minimum distance between 2 pharmacies?

That's not a requirement under the Act. I believe it's a requirement under the Commonwealth arrangements. This legislation won't impact that requirement.

Will new pharmacy businesses require an expect inspection prior to granting a licence? And if so, what's the timeline?

Some of those processes are really being worked through. Keep an eye on the website and more information will be coming to hand as we work through those processes.

Kirsten Law  
Is it acceptable for a smaller sized pharmacy to close to the public to conduct a private consultation? Would that be an exemption to the consultation room requirement?

That's a really good point to clarify that the premises standards do not require the business to have a separate consultation room.
They require you to have a space that is appropriate for the services being provided and so that will very much depend on the type of business, type of services that your business is providing.
Similarly, there's a question here about whether there will be requirements about the design and fit out of the pharmacy in the premises standards. Again, I'd encourage you to review the consultation draft of the premises standards that will give you a pretty good sense as to what's proposed, noting that there'll be some changes as a result of stakeholder feedback, but it will give you a sense as to the types of things that are covered off on those.

Are two licences required, one for the owner, one for the premises?

That's a really good question. I know some jurisdictions have a process of registration of the premises and a separate process for the owner to have a licence.
That's not the case in Queensland. It is a single licence for the business and as part of that licence, all the owners must be eligible and and their ownership is considered as part of that.

Natalie Wakefield  
There's a question about corporate shareholders, Kirsten. Whether you're required to raise it with Council to be eligible for the one-year transition?

Kirsten Law  
There's no requirement in the legislation for you to raise that it will just, I think, be part of the Council's consideration in determining those applications, I think.

What in particular is it about corporate beneficiaries of trust, where the directors and shareholders are compliant?
So I think this question here is relating to why corporate beneficiaries of a trust are not permitted.
I'm not sure if I've understood the question properly, but essentially the new legislation only enables a person to be a beneficiary of a trust where that person is a pharmacist or their close adult relative. That means they have to be what's called a natural person under legislation. You have to be a human. It doesn't permit a corporation to be a trustee of a trust. That's one of the rules around holding an interest in a business. Part of the focus of this legislation was to remove layers of complexity in ownership structures that can be used to perhaps circumvent ownership requirements, and so the Act is quite clear that to hold a material interest in a business you must be either a pharmacist or their close adult relative.
Hopefully that answers that question.

Kirsten Law  
Does the Council have a website?

That information will be on our next slide. We're in the process of transitioning information from Queensland Health's website over to the Council's website.
Also, flagging that at the moment communications with stakeholders are coming from Queensland Health, so please sign up to our subscription list over time that will transition from Queensland Health to the Council, so just keep an eye out for those communications going forward as well.

Cameron Foote
Kirsten, apparently my audio has been a bit choppy tonight and I apologise for that. Another question.

Does the Act apply to online pharmacies?

Kirsten Law  
The Act does apply to online pharmacies if it falls within the definition of a pharmacy business. Regardless of whether it provides pharmacy services directly to customers at a bricks and mortar premises or if it provides services indirectly such as online ordering and supply. So yes, it does apply to online pharmacies.

Cameron Foote  
Another question come through What can the Council do to enforce the new Act and make sure that people are complying?

Natalie Wakefield  
There are a lot clearer powers under this legislation than the previous legislation. in relation to licence applications, for example, there are powers to require information and documents from applicants.

There are powers to suspend and cancel licences and also impose conditions on licences, and there are significant penalties for non-compliance with the Act as well. There's a number of offences, including owning a business without a licence, having a material interest in a business where you're not permitted to hold one and exceeding the limit of the number of businesses that you're allowed to hold, and they have some quite significant penalties attached to them. It certainly gives a lot more power to the Council in terms of enforcing legislation than previously. Having said all that, as, as I mentioned previously, our very first approach as good regulators is always to provide information and education to help you comply with the Act.

Cameron Foote  
I had one other question. What happens if the current owner has a non-practising registration in QLD?

Kirsten Law  
That's a good question. We are aware there are a small number of non-practising pharmacists who may own or have an interest in pharmacy businesses in Queensland. Going forward any new owners will need to have general registration under the national law. If you're an owner or an interest holder who has non practising registration, you'll need to take steps to ensure you comply with the Act.  The Act gives existing non practising pharmacist owners or interest holders two years from the date the licencing provisions commence in which to ensure that all of their owners comply with the legislation. This only applies if you are an existing business and you're a pharmacist who held non practising registration immediately before the licencing commences.
You will still need to apply for a licence within that two-year period, it's just that you will be considered an eligible person for that period if you comply with all other aspects of the Act.  I just really encourage you if you do fall into that category, to take steps now to carefully consider how the Act applies to you.

Cameron Foote  
Thank you very much Kirsten and Natalie for your presentation and your quick responses. I'd also like to thank in the background Nicole and Carol again for their help with fielding those questions.
Thank you all for joining us this evening. I appreciate you giving up your valuable time.
To subscribe to updates the QR codes there are on the screen. You'll obviously get information when they come to hand about the approved forms, new processes, the guidance material.  It will be available on our website as soon as possible.
On behalf of Council, thank you again for your we look forward to continuing this journey with you. Have a good evening. Bye now.