Thursday, 29 August 2024
Bills
Health Legislation Amendment (Regulatory Reform) Bill 2024
Bills
Health Legislation Amendment (Regulatory Reform) Bill 2024
Second reading
Debate resumed.
Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (14:57): I will continue from where I left off prior to the lunch break. We are talking about the Health Legislation Amendment (Regulatory Reform) Bill 2024, and I just wanted to, as some of the other speakers have spoken about, just talk a little bit about the health services in the Box Hill area and surrounds and the enormous investment that the Andrews and Allan government have actually put into the health services, not just locally but throughout the state. Obviously in our area particularly some of the recent investments are in relation to the priority primary care centre, and I note the Minister for Health in question time did note that those centres have been changing their name to ‘urgent care centres’. The one in Forest Hill, as the member for Glen Waverley pointed out, is very proximate to the Box Hill electorate and one that I have frequented, and they do provide a fantastic service for the community, particularly out of hours.
The other facility that I wanted to mention was the Blackburn Public Surgical Centre, which is undergoing renovations as we speak. It is already undertaking quite a number of public surgeries. We know how much public surgeries were impacted by the pandemic, and it is great that the government was able to secure this facility and bring that online as part of the Eastern Health suite of services that they offer to provide more public surgery to patients in the eastern suburbs. It is really a credit to the entire health workforce – how hard they are working and how many hours they are putting in.
In relation to the bill itself, this is really talking about modernising and streamlining compliance and enforcement powers to support a graduated, proportionate and risk-based approach to regulation. Back in December of last year the minister did announce that there was the establishment of a health regulator within the Department of Health, and this was about making our health regulators more responsive and ensuring that Victorians can be kept safe and making sure that they have a modern health regulator that can look out for them.
It has sometimes been described as creating a superteam of regulators, ready to respond to matters across the health sector in consolidating resources where their needs are most important. The amendments that have been proposed in this bill will beef up the powers of the health regulator to clamp down on those not meeting the required standards. It will also give the regulator the power to issue improvement or prohibition notices, information or document production notices, infringement notices for prescribed offences and to accept an enforceable undertaking. I think that all Victorians would appreciate those reforms to assist in the regulation of our health system.
Another key element of the bill is to amend the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008. As many speakers have previously mentioned, the journey to starting a family can be a very difficult one and often does require assistive reproductive treatment. I really want to again thank all of the members who have shared their stories. It is a very personal story. For many it is a very draining time, not just emotionally but physically as well, to go through that process. Those members who shared that, I really want to call all of them out. I also want to put on record my thanks to this government for actually seeing the need for having public IVF services. I think it is such a huge game changer. IVF services and assisted reproduction should not just be accessible to those who have the money but should be accessible to all. We know from the evidence that it often is not first time lucky; for many people it can take years until a successful conception can happen. As I was saying before, it is physically and emotionally draining, but it can also be financially draining by having all of those repeated treatments, so the public access to that is so, so important.
Australia and Victoria do have a really long history in the IVF space. The first Australian IVF baby was born in Victoria in fact in 1980, and that achievement was a collaboration with doctors from Monash University. It really paved the way for an amazing string of successes and Victoria being a world leader in IVF. In 1983 Monash IVF achieved the first ever baby born from an embryo frozen prior to transfer. Then in 1989 the first IVF surrogate birth in Australia happened here, again in Victoria, really showing that Victoria has for decades been leading the way in assisted reproduction. I think we would all agree that that is for the betterment of the state. Anything that we can do to encourage and assist families and women who wish to conceive and wish to start a family I think is something that really should be celebrated.
Victoria was also the first jurisdiction in Australia to recognise the needs of people who were conceived through donor treatment procedures to have access to information about their genetic heritage. We have seen how important that is for people in terms of genetic diseases, understanding what treatments are available and understanding that for their own future. We have come to the stage now where in 2021 there were almost 20,000 births in Australia which were a result of IVF treatment. It is a terrific initiative, and I commend the bill to the house.
That the debate be now adjourned.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.