Thursday, 15 August 2024

Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Anthony Carbines:

That this bill be now read a second time.

And Michael O’Brien’s amendment:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until the government:

(a) properly consults with the medical profession in Victoria on the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine;

(b) ensures that victim-survivors of sexual assault can obtain timely forensic medical services; and

(c) improves safeguards for the use and sharing of personal information held by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.’

Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (15:43): It is a great pleasure to rise and add my contribution to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Bill 2024. This week I have heard some great contributions on this bill in this place, and it is great to have the opportunity to add to this debate. This bill ultimately replaces the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Act 1985, the VIFM act, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine’s enabling legislation. This bill will support the VIFM in maintaining its status as a world-leading forensic medical institute. The VIFM provides independent forensic medical and scientific services that support the justice system. It works with families of deceased victims of violence, police, the courts and other Australian and international jurisdictions.

Although I knew a little about the VIFM’s work, after doing some research for this bill and looking further deeply into their work, I have been amazed at the amount of incredible things that they do to support our community. While it is a statutory government agency with its core function to investigate the causes of death, the VIFM also operates as a department of forensic medicine in partnership with Monash University and houses the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, providing tissue for transplant. As I alluded to, there is a long list of things that they do that service our community, the scientific community as well, our justice system and indeed the Victorian community.

Some of those things are incredible. They assist with human identification services for all reportable deaths in Victoria. They provide clinical forensic medical services, which involve the examining and first-line treatment of victims of crime, alleged perpetrators and police detainees, including fitness for interview assessments. They assist with disaster victim identification services in emergencies and fatal events such as bushfires, which we have seen and which we know are part of our landscape here in Victoria. They do support families who are going through the coronial system, including assistance throughout a death investigation and genetic counselling services. They assist with toxicology analysis on behalf of Victoria Police, of samples collected from drivers who are suspected of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They provide data intelligence to inform government policies, consultancy services, missing persons identification using DNA – and I will talk a little bit further about that in a moment – a tissue bank, and education and training services for forensic scientists.

The government did conduct a review into the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Act to ensure the institute remained in a good position to continue its best practice forensic services. In addition to that review, the government has invested heavily into their services with a $100 million-plus investment into the VIFM since the 2021–22 state budget, which has allowed them to really build upon their capabilities, including through an MRI machine. Building upon that review, the bill introduces some principles to guide the VIFM’s work, a new governance structure and clarifications of its objectives and functions, as well as introducing a data-sharing and information-sharing framework.

Ultimately, as we do in this place with many acts that need to be reviewed or looked at, we are modernising the VIFM in its standard of public sector governance and service delivery. It will ensure that this facility remains well positioned as a world-class and best practice forensic service. So why are these reforms needed? The enabling legislation needed to be looked at as something that has not been changed for over 30 years, and the reforms, as I said, do modernise the VIFM to meet community expectations.

In looking at the research and looking at this bill, I learned that the VIFM was established in 1985 to provide those forensic and pathology scientific services to the State Coroner, but since that establishment we have obviously seen such significant scientific and medical advancements. Since 1985 our technology has certainly advanced. In 1985 in the UK there was a gentleman who made what was called the very first public call on a Vodafone mobile phone in the UK. The mobile phone was only just being introduced in 1985, and we certainly have seen changes in our technology since then. I note also from looking at the research and looking at the work that the VIFM did there was a senior scientist that had worked at the VIFM for three decades, and he described what the advancements looked like to him. He described how when they first started doing research it was like detecting something the size of a beachball in an Olympic-size pool, and nowadays it is like looking for a marble, they can now zoom down into such detail.

Today the VIFM is a world-class medical institute that supports the coronial, criminal and other legal processes, and I would like to highlight in the time I have got left some of the significant work and interesting cases that they have worked on. In the event of a death that does need to be investigated, they can conduct a routine screening test for 327 different illicit substances, prescription drugs and poisons. Bloods are usually taken, but hair strands and eye fluid can be forensically examined as well. Cases can be straightforward or they can be very complex. Some can be recent deaths, and others can be cold cases.

By chance, one of the cold cases that has been investigated is when in 2017 a snorkeller found some remains at Shallow Inlet, which is near Sandy Point near Wilsons Promontory. Those remains were handed over to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, who started to do an investigation. They knew that the remains belonged to a male aged in his 20s or 30s who was about 170 centimetres tall. They were able to get DNA, but it did not match any of the databases that they had. So they decided that their last chance was to then try and use forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIGG as they like to call it. That involves people uploading their own DNA to a database in a genealogy sense for family history – a family database. They ultimately found, after a lot of work and some good luck, that the remains were those of Christopher Luke Moore, who was a World War I veteran and a farmer who had gone missing there. They found a match with two of Christopher’s descendants, one from his mother’s side and one from his father’s side. They had uploaded their DNA to that genealogy database. It gave the VIFM researchers an opportunity to build upon that family tree, and the family were then able to know what happened to their relative. I think this is an example of the incredible work that they do there.

I think too, notably, that the principles of this bill and why it is so important are really to modernise the legislation but also to consider, as much as possible, how the work that they do needs to have respect for cultural beliefs and those impacted by events. Additionally, this bill does underscore the need to acknowledge the significant nature of events that the institute addresses and responds to and how they need to do that with sensitivity and empathy for those that have been affected. While the VIFM’s primary role is to serve the justice system, it often works by engaging people who have endured extremely difficult circumstances, and taking a respectful and considerate approach is integral to that part of the VIFM’s mission. This is about modernising the work that they do, a new governance structure and some clarification around their objectives and functions and information sharing, and I commend the bill to the house.

Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (15:52): I also rise in support of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Bill 2024, and can I start by echoing the sentiments of the member for Bellarine in acknowledging some of the wonderful contributions that have been made in relation to this bill from both sides. I think there have been some really interesting and valuable contributions. I think part of the reason is because the community really does tend to hold a high degree of interest in matters of forensics. I think everyone would be pleased to know that the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) is considered one of the very best. It is a world-class forensic medical institute that sits at the heart of coronial, criminal and many legal processes, and it has undoubtedly been one of the great advances in criminal justice over the past 30 years.

But this was not always the case. I can see the member for Greenvale sitting here, and I know he is an avid student of urban history. I was interested to see the journey that we have taken to get to this place in terms of matters forensic, particularly as they relate to coronial investigations. I was reading that initially after the colonial settlement of Melbourne bodies were often stored and inquests were held in pubs. That was because they were the coolest places – not in terms of them being the place to hang out, but literally because they would have had thick bluestone walls and probably thick bluestone cellars, and the basement of a pub would have been the coolest place, in temperature, in which you could actually store a body and then undertake some forensic investigations.

Obviously as the population grew the health concerns and the stench became a bit too overpowering. You would not probably want to be going to the pub with the line-up of bodies in the basement. So it was decided at that time, and that was back in the 1850s, that a central morgue should be established, and by the 1890s that had become the main site of coronial inquests. The old Melbourne City Mortuary in Flinders Street carried out this work until 1951, and then the institution was moved to the extension of Flinders Street, where it operated until 1988. As the years passed it was becoming apparent that the facilities of the mortuary were inadequate and incompatible with the expectations of modern society. As described by Professor Vernon Plueckhahn, the professor of forensic medicine at Monash University, in his history of the establishment of the VIFM:

The foyer of the building was often filled with bereaved relatives, witnesses, lawyers and police waiting for an inquest to start. Odours from the mortuary usually permeated through the crowded foyer. Distressed relatives called to make formal identifications had to find their way through the crowd to the identification room. No dignity existed for either the living or the dead.

By the 1950s the College of Pathologists of Australia had raised their concerns that the standards of forensic pathology in Australia were not uniform and that in many areas autopsy work was not satisfactory. The college recommended that a forensic pathologist have access to laboratory facilities in the fields of histopathology, bacteriology, biochemistry and toxicology to enhance the quality and reliability of medico-legal death investigations.

Over subsequent years we saw successive Victorian governments come to terms with the need for reform. It was in 1975 that the then Attorney-General Vernon Wilcox QC established the Coroners Court Review Committee, which was tasked with inquiring into whether existing arrangements for the identification of deceased persons, post-mortem examinations and forensic toxicology and analytic services were satisfactory for present and future needs. In its final report, which was submitted in February 1977, the committee recommended that all coroners autopsies in Victoria be performed by or under the supervision of a qualified pathologist, who had access to ancillary services such as toxicology, serology, histopathology, microbiology and radiology.

Finally, when the Cain government was elected in 1982, we saw the fast evolution of forensic medicine infrastructure in Victoria. This was the basis for the establishment of the initial Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine – the act that we are seeking to repeal today – and the institute itself, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Pathology, opened in July 1988, providing Victoria with a new purpose-built building for the provision of forensic pathology services to the coroner, courts and the wider community. As the Premier said at the time, at the opening of the institute:

With the opening of this Institute we leap 20 years ahead. Now, for the first time in Australia, there will be a team of Forensic Pathologists working with state-of-the-art technology in a state-of-the-art building, to provide comprehensive high quality services to the coroner, the courts and the people of Victoria. They are essential services.

I think we even read that it was very visionary at the time, but as the Premier at the time said, ‘We are looking 20 years ahead,’ and now we are 40 years ahead. This is a good opportunity to revisit the act that was introduced at that time and the institute that was developed to make sure that it is actually fit for purpose at the moment.

The institute, particularly at the time when it was opened, was groundbreaking, bringing together forensic, medical and scientific expertise under one roof and including formal academic activities in its operations. For instance, the partnership created between the Victorian government and Monash University saw the establishment of the department of forensic medicine within its medical faculty. We also created a world-class IT system to handle and process the case load and manage data stemming from its work, established expert boards – well ahead of almost any jurisdiction in the world ‍– and exported our findings globally and supported other jurisdictions in times of disaster. The VIFM also oversees the crucial work of the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, it partners with the Australian Sports Brain Bank to investigate post-mortem examination of people who have participated in sports with risk of repetitive head injury, it engages in teaching and research to improve public health and safety and of course it undertakes research into sexual assault to help us protect the community from this means of offending.

We do have a lot to be proud of, but even the finest institutions require the appropriate legislation to ensure that they can step into the next era with confidence. This bill seeks to replace the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Act 1985 as the enabling legislation and ensures that the VIFM can continue to enjoy its well-earned status as a world-leading institution in forensic medicine.

I am proud to say that this Labor government has a solid record of supporting the work of the VIFM. In 2021, $93 million was delivered to build its capacity in essential service delivery, including through the addition of MRI capability, lab equipment, infrastructure improvement and new case management systems. In 2023 an additional $19.47 million was delivered to help its transition to a new clinical forensic medicine service delivery model that meets victim-survivor needs and expectations and ensures a sustainable and efficient service.

The government conducted a review of the VIFM act to ensure it remains well positioned to continue to provide best practice forensic services. The bill implements key findings from the review and is the final plank of reform for this vital service. The key features of this legislation include the introduction of principles to guide the VIFM’s work, a new governance structure, clarification of VIFM’s objects and functions and an information-sharing network. The bill introduces principles that aim to guide VIFM in a people-centred approach to service delivery and commitment to excellence and clinical and research governance and to improving public health while serving the justice system. It also introduces a new governance structure, one designed to meet best practice standards for public entities. Key reforms in this structure include moving to a skills-based governing board and introducing two key leadership roles, those of chief executive officer and director of forensic medicine. The VIFM continues to provide outstanding service for the people of Victoria, and I commend the bill to the house.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (16:02): I too rise to speak in support of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Bill 2024. This bill is nothing short of what families and victim-survivors deserve. This bill means that we will continue to improve the services that are available to people in their time of need and to give them their dignity after they have passed away. That is the sort of government that we are: we care for people at the hardest times in their lives, whether it be following an attack, an accident, an emergency, a bushfire or indeed family violence, because this government will always stand for people in their greatest hour of need. The onus is on us to make sure that we have the structures, the systems and the institutions in place to care for people when they are so vulnerable. This is people at their most vulnerable, and so it is appropriate and it is right that we have done what we can to ensure the most respectful service and the best support for people and their families.

This bill comes after we have already invested $100 million in this institute to ensure updated technology and infrastructure and other needs, and the technology is such that it has been featured and celebrated in news articles and is considered some of the best that is available. But as we know with, for example, education, it is not just the buildings; it is the care and the expertise of the teachers inside and the systems that we have in place in education. And with this, it is not just the $100 million we have spent on infrastructure and technology; it is about the principles and the skills of those who inhabit that building and use that infrastructure.

We have this bill before the house that seeks to really clarify and strengthen a few things related to this institute. One of those important changes is to ensure that we have a skills-based governance board to make sure that the direction of the institute, the guidance of the institute, is provided by those who know from professional and personal experience what the best way is to deliver this service in a way that is high quality, in a way that is accountable and in a way that provides the dignity and respect that people deserve. That skills-based board will be made up of multiple people. They will work together with the director and the CEO, because another one of the changes that this bill seeks to introduce is that, rather than having the director of medicine or the technical person being across the governance and management of the operations of the institute, it creates the possibility for a second role, a CEO. Just because you are a good director, it does not mean you are a good CEO – just as, just because you are a good member for Nepean, it does not mean you would be a good opposition leader. This bill seeks to create the opportunity for the board, if they so wish, to hire on merit both a CEO and a director. That skills-based board will be accountable to the Attorney-General and through that to this place, and so this will ensure the appropriate level of oversight for such an important service, which as I said before, cares for people at the most vulnerable points in their lives.

That is why it is really important as well that we have really clear principles set out, really clear principles that help to guide the board, the CEO, the director and the staff, when they are performing their functions or powers, on what should be guiding them. Some of those principles are: meeting professional standards relating to scientific integrity and ethics; pursuing benefits to the community and to the justice system; and – this one speaks to me particularly – recognising the significant nature of the events to which the institute’s services relate and the need to be sensitive and responsive to persons affected by those events; promoting public health and safety; promoting the administration of justice; respecting the cultural beliefs of persons affected by the events to which the institute’s services relate – another very important principle in such a multicultural community; and recognising the diverse needs of Aboriginal communities, including the importance of self-determination and connection to culture, family, community and country.

I think this legislation does a really great job of listing the principles there, and I think that they are a fine set of principles for any institute to be led by. On the last one there around self-determination, we know that this government has worked hard to embed the principle of self-determination across all of its work, across the departments and across the agencies – because we know that self-determination needs to be a guiding factor, a guiding principle, in the making of decisions.

I will be interested to learn more about how the institute – and I probably should have done this research ahead of this contribution – ensures that people with intellectual disability are carefully and thoughtfully supported during difficult times. We know that women with disability are seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted than women without a disability, so I am sure that the fine leaders there at the institute have made sure that their staff and those they support are able to support people, especially people with intellectual disability, in such a time.

I referred there to a statistic, and we know that this institute through its work over such a long period of time has gathered information – data – that would be really informative and really helpful for different parts of the system and the work that they do, so this legislation will also clarify how the institute can use and disclose information for purposes other than the primary purpose of collection. That could be in dealing with coroners, police, the courts and other agencies or institutions. We know that it would benefit them to have an understanding of the type of knowledge that this institute has gathered, so I think that is a great clarification in this legislation, which will be welcomed by the police and the coroner and other agencies. This information-sharing network will make sure that there are appropriate disclosures, clearing up the legal ambiguity and making sure there are safeguards in place, because again, this is a vulnerable time in people’s lives and I am sure that they will want to be reassured that there are safeguards in place for such personal information.

I started my contribution noting that this is legislation that seeks to ensure the best for victim-survivors in their time of need, and I note at the table we have the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence. She leads our government in supporting victim-survivors. Our government has worked so hard to improve standards – for example, through the multi-agency risk assessment and management framework and through Orange Door – and I know that our hardworking minister continues to develop innovative ways to ensure that nobody in their time of need is left alone and everyone knows that they have our full support. I commend this bill to the house.

Jordan CRUGNALE (Bass) (16:12): I too join the contributions happening here in the chamber to speak on the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Bill 2024. Although the institute is in Southbank, a bit of a way from Bass, that does not mean the work, obviously, is any less important. We have had some very heartfelt contributions on this bill. I know a lot of members have been speaking on the annual report, and it is quite a comprehensive document. I draw the chamber to their motto, which is ‘Veritas omnia vincit – truth conquers all’. They do groundbreaking research. They have an exemplary international reputation. They address multiple specialist forums worldwide and are a respected and highly regarded team of doctors and scientists, legal and information technology staff, researchers and scholars. Their independence and commitment to the discovery of truth are also to be commended, as too is their really empathetic approach to the victims of the vicissitudes of life, as mentioned in the annual report, who come within their ambit.

There are also a swathe of publications and specialist books, and we have heard those spoken about as well: Ned Kelly: Under the Microscope; Guidelines for Medico-Legal Care of Victims of Sexual Violence; The Forensic Pharmacology of Drugs of Abuse; and the Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology.

Forensic science is going on all around us every day even though we often do not realise it. In a nutshell forensic medicine uses medical knowledge to solve crime and support the justice system. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine is that key plank of our legal system, working closely alongside our police and courts providing expert evidence that is needed for the proper and fair distribution of justice, and it is home to some of our most skilled medical minds. The institute also works alongside families and hospitals, especially as the home of the Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria, and conducts teaching and research activities to help further community understanding of forensic pathology – truly a hub of knowledge.

The institute has played a key role in solving some of the state’s most notable crimes and mysteries, like uncovering the real identity of the Sandy Point skeleton last year. Nor is its work limited just to our state. As I have mentioned, they undertake work nationally and internationally, engaging with medical and forensic practitioners in other parts of the world to share knowledge, build capacity and contribute evidence in some cases. Overall, it is an incredibly important part of our community and one that needs to be supported to ensure it continues to play an effective role for our state far into the future. We can be rightly proud that Victoria is home to this world-leading facility and proud of the reforms that we are seeking to implement through this bill, which will strengthen the institute for future generations.

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine is currently undergoing a series of reforms supported by us here in the Allan Labor government. In 2021 it received $93.1 million to support the development of its capability and service delivery. This included new equipment and infrastructure improvements. Then in 2023 our government granted the institute $19.47 million as it transitioned to a new service delivery model to better meet the needs of victim-survivors. We undertook a review of the governing act, and that leads us to today. This bill currently before us implements the key findings of that review to complete a series of reforms it has undergone in recent years. It is time to sign off on this body of work and let the institute get on with its important work. By July 2025 the changes laid out in the bill will come into effect if passed. It sets out to achieve three key things: to establish the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, to repeal the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine Act 1985 and to amend acts as a consequence of these changes.

A major part of the bill before us deals with the governance of the institute. The institute that will officially be established under the bill will have a number of objectives, much as it does in its current form, including providing or assisting in the provision of forensic services and human tissue services; overseeing Victoria’s forensic services; assisting the Coroners Court; contributing to public health and safety, the administration of justice and a reduction in preventable deaths; and contributing to the development of knowledge, practice and innovation in forensic and human tissue services through research, teaching and training. Its functions will include conducting medical examinations at the direction of the coroner, forensic medical examinations, receiving reports of reportable and reviewable deaths to refer to coroners, taking possession of bodies, providing information about the coronial process to family and next of kin, receiving human tissue and providing teaching and training and conducting research, among other things.

The institute will have a governing body consisting of up to eight members plus a chair, all with relevant knowledge in forensic medicine related science, governance, criminal justice or commercial, operational, legal or financial matters, appointed on the recommendation of the Attorney-General. The board will then appoint a CEO, ensuring the organisation is all aligned on key decision-making as it looks to the future. The bill also provides for the appointment of a director of forensic medicine, someone with expertise in science and forensic pathology. The director will advise the CEO on matters of clinical governance and forensic and human tissue services and will supervise teaching and research at the institute.

At every step this refreshed organisation will be guided by Victoria’s foremost experts in the field and by rigorous standards in science, medicine and governance. It will continue to be an organisation that Victorians, the nation and the world can trust in matters of forensic pathology and take pride in. Added to this, all the way through these changes the bill requires that those carrying out a power or function under the bill should recognise the importance of the institute’s work and the sensitivity attached to it as well as meeting professional standards of scientific integrity and ethics, principles that the institute itself and the people that work there also uphold each day in their work.

The bill contains sundry other administrative details – things like updating other acts with the name of this new bill – that taken together will result in a cohesive, refreshed Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine ready to take on the specialist tasks needed to ensure our justice system continues to run smoothly. It is a jam-packed bill. There is a fair bit of work to be done before the commencement date next year, especially on the governance side, so it is imperative that we get on with passing the bill, and with this in mind I commend the bill to the house.

Vicki WARD (Eltham – Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Employment) (16:21): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.