The Hearing Australia Board approves the appointment of the Chair of the Ethics Committee based on the recommendation of the Director, NAL. Other members are invited and appointed by the Director as vacancies occur.

The role of the Human Research Ethics Committee is to:

• protect the welfare and rights of participants in research undertaken by researchers employed by Hearing Australia
• approve research by other institutions on Hearing Australia clients where:
  (a) there is significant involvement by researchers employed by Hearing Australia, or
  (b) issues of privacy of client records kept by Hearing Australia are raised by the research, in which case, the Committee needs to review the research to ensure that any breaches of the Australian Privacy Principles are justified or steps are required of the researchers to obtain client permission to access the records.
• ensure that prior to the commencement of subject testing, all projects have received the appropriate ethics approval
• monitor the progress of research projects to which it has given ethics approval. This will be performed on an annual basis by examining the progress reports submitted by the researchers
• approve procedures to deal with complaints from participants of research projects, researchers or other interested parties about the conduct of the research or the consideration of research projects by the Committee.

Attendance at Hearing Australia Human Research Ethics Committee Meetings

The Human Research Ethics Committee met once formally during the year and also reviews submissions throughout the year.