Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (16:49): I rise to make a contribution to the Health Legislation Amendment (Regulatory Reform) Bill 2026. This bill seeks to amend four different acts: the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 to require registered ART providers to comply with an approval accreditation scheme and to make amendments to provisions relating to the registration of registered ART providers and the inspection powers of the secretary; the Non-Emergency Patient Transport and First Aid Services Act 2003 to expand the scope of the regulation-making power in relation to the incorporation of documents; the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 to amend provisions in relation to the registration of cooling tower systems; and the Radiation Act 2005 in relation to the disposal of radiation sources and to create a regulatory scheme for the provision of financial assurances and for other purposes.
Before I begin my contribution, I would like to acknowledge all of our amazing and wonderful healthcare workers, who do an amazing job every single day. Their dedication and care is really a testament to the way that they help people. In December I had a medical episode and I was in hospital. I had an asthma attack. It does not happen very often; I have had a couple. That one was quite a bad one. I was taken away by the ambulance. When I got to the hospital, just to be right in the middle of that system and to experience what they do on the job every single day was a learning. We sit back and we look at what they do, but to be involved in that process – the care that I received was second to none. I spent a couple of days in hospital, but about three days later I got a text message from one of the nurses just saying, ‘Hoping you’ve got your asthma pump in your bag. We did realise you don’t do that as often as what you should.’ There was that genuine heart, that genuine care.
We probably do not think enough about what goes on between those walls every single day. People were running, bells were ringing – we hear bells ringing here, but when you are in hospital there are often different alarm bells going off for different reasons. But the fast pace, being in emergency and then going into a ward and seeing firsthand that process in place – it is just phenomenal. I do not think, as I say, we probably understand it as well as what we could and should.
I would like to speak firstly to the amendments around the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act that come from the rapid review conducted into assisted reproductive technology and in-vitro fertilisation regulation and accreditation in Australia. I have a close friend whose daughter went through IVF. It was quite a process, and it can be quite heartbreaking. It is an exciting time, but then it also can be quite disappointing. She had a couple of misses before she got to have her little girl Ruby. But for that family to have that opportunity to have a child and for Tam to have a daughter, one child that she has, it is quite a miracle. As a mother of two children, I was very fortunate to go through that process of pregnancy and becoming a mum. It does not happen for everybody, and I think we need to stop and think about that. But unfortunately there have been some issues that have arisen. It is so important that people are protected, that this is a really tight process and that things that have happened in the past do not happen again. The rapid review found multiple failures of the current system. Recent serious incidents have highlighted why strong oversight and robust safeguards are essential.
One of the most shocking incidents involved a woman undergoing treatment at Monash IVF in 2025 – that has been mentioned in this house today – who had the wrong embryo transferred due to what Monash described as human error. The embryo belonged to another patient, meaning the baby was genetically related to a different family. The mistake was only discovered months later when the genetic parents asked to transfer their remaining frozen embryos to another provider. During that process staff found an unexpected extra embryo in storage, triggering an investigation. The investigation confirmed that an embryo from a different patient had been incorrectly transferred, resulting in the birth of a child. Monash IVF apologised to both families and commissioned an independent review and reported the incident to regulators. This incident highlighted the devastating consequences that can occur when safeguards fail. For a woman to go through IVF, which can be such a difficult time in itself, to finally fall pregnant and then give birth to a baby that was not biologically hers is just so tragic for her and her family and the other families involved. Such an incident is deeply distressing for everyone involved and raises serious questions about systems, procedures and accountability.
The traumatic incident serves as a powerful reminder that even in highly regulated healthcare settings, failures can occur when oversight is inadequate or safeguards are not sufficiently in place. A few months later a second embryo transfer error was disclosed at Monash IVF’s Clayton clinic in Melbourne. In that case a patient received the wrong embryo under her treatment plan. Her own embryo was transferred instead of her partner’s embryo. This prompted further regulatory scrutiny and an expansion of the independent review. While these incidents are rare, they demonstrate that even a single failure can have lifelong consequences for families. The fact that multiple embryo transfer errors were subsequently identified highlights why strong oversight, rigorous auditing and transparent reporting arrangements are essential to maintaining public confidence in assisted reproductive treatment services.
Whilst this bill improves regulatory powers, these recent events have demonstrated that change must happen and that stronger oversight and regulation must be in place to ensure it never happens again. Victorians expect absolute confidence in systems governing embryo storage, identification and transfer procedures, and there is a need to better protect patients from catastrophic errors. The review handed down by Professor Euan M Wallace and the Department of Health here in Victoria made a total of 10 recommendations, including strengthening the powers of the Victorian Department of Health to oversee assisted reproductive treatment providers, aligning Victoria’s IVF regulatory framework with a new national accreditation scheme being developed by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, allowing stronger compliance inspection and enforcement powers where concerns arise and giving the regulator greater capacity to intervene where patient safety or quality standards are at risk. One of the key recommendations that the rapid review handed down was that independent accreditation be pursued through the existing national healthcare accreditation body, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, and that it be responsible for accreditation of fertility clinics.
The report also found that the demand for assisted reproductive services is increasing. In 2023, 104,000 ART treatment cycles were performed in Australia, in comparison to about 56,000 back in 2010, so a significant increase. Australia has one of the highest per capita uptake rates of ART services in the world, with one in 16 babies in Australia born as a result of assisted reproductive technology. Infertility affects thousands of people and can have profound emotional, psychological and social impacts. For many Australians facing infertility, IVF provides hope where there was once heartbreak and uncertainty. IVF is more than just a medical procedure; it is a pathway to parenthood for individuals and families who may otherwise never have had the opportunity to have children. Advances in reproductive medicine have transformed countless lives, resulting in the birth of healthy children and bringing immeasurable joy to families across our nation.
Every child born through IVF represents a family’s hope fulfilled. Our responsibility in this Parliament is to ensure that those families can pursue that hope with confidence, knowing the system is safe, accountable and worthy of their trust. The review highlighted that there have been 12 previous reviews and inquiries into different aspects of assisted reproductive technology, legislation and care provision that have been undertaken in different states and territories since 2014. Reviews of ART in the ACT, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia have all identified the need for reform in the sector itself, along with improvements to accreditation processes and regulatory oversight. Some stakeholders have raised concerns that while all states and territories are reviewing and introducing legislation, these are not actually in alignment as intended, risking further inconsistencies.
The amendments that are contained in this bill are about ensuring that our legislation and regulatory framework are ready to be aligned with the national accreditation framework and standards currently being developed by the Commonwealth. The rapid review found that the current industry-led accreditation scheme is in fact inadequate and lacks the transparency that the community expects. It is important as legislators that we act in this space and have the right schemes and protections in place.
In the short time I have left, I am also going to move on to another aspect of the bill that we are debating today, which is a completely different topic: cooling tower systems. There are apparently approximately 6000 cooling towers in Victoria, and cooling towers are used across Victoria in residential, commercial and industrial settings. Whilst they play an important role in evaporative cooling systems, they can also pose a serious health risk if not properly maintained. Legionella bacteria can develop within cooling towers and, if released into the air, can cause legionnaire’s disease, a potentially fatal illness. These reforms recognise that the person best placed to manage the risk associated with a cooling tower is not always the landowner. In many cases, responsibility for the operation and maintenance of these systems rests with facility managers, occupiers, lessees or owner corporations. By aligning legal responsibility with operational control, the bill strengthens accountability and helps ensure that health and safety obligations are properly met. Currently, the owner of the land on which there is a cooling tower system located is required to prepare and implement a risk management plan, and that plan must be audited annually by an approved auditor. They also must be registered under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.