The Victorian Government is proposing legislative reforms to improve the regulatory tools available under health portfolio legislation, and to change how assisted reproductive treatment (ART) is regulated in Victoria.
The department has released a consultation paper to seek stakeholder views, to build understanding of the reforms and to support their implementation.
The consultation paper is divided into two parts and consults on:
- Part 1 – proposed reforms to improve the compliance and enforcement tools available under health portfolio legislation.
- Part 2 – proposed reforms to the regulation of ART (under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008).
Part 1 includes proposed reforms to improve the compliance and enforcement tools available to regulate:
- Cooling tower and water delivery systems under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.
- Drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act 2003.
- First aid services under the Non-Emergency Patient Transport and First Aid Services Act 2003.
- Medicines and poisons under the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981.
- Non-emergency patient transport under the Non-Emergency Patient Transport and First Aid Services Act 2003.
- Pest control operators under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008.
- Private hospitals, day procedure centres and mobile services (or health service establishments) under the Health Services Act 1988.
- Radiation use under the Radiation Act 2005.
Part 2 includes proposed reforms to the regulation of ART including:
- Transferring the regulatory functions of registering ART providers and monitoring and enforcing compliance to the Secretary, Department of Health.
- Transferring responsibility for maintaining and managing the Central Register and Voluntary Register (the registers) to a new Donor Conception Registrar within the Department of Health.
- Replacing the requirement for the regulator’s preapproval to bring donor gametes or embryos formed from them into, or out of, Victoria with a certification requirement.
- Removing the requirements that counselling be offered or undertaken before disclosure of information from the registers or lodgement of a contact preference. This is proposed to be replaced with a requirement that the Donor Conception Registrar provide prescribed information to the person which will cover matters currently required to be covered during mandated counselling.
- Removing the functions relating to education, consultation and research promotion from the ART Act.
- Improving regulatory tools in line with reforms being proposed to other health regulatory schemes.
Have your say
Stakeholders are invited to submit responses to the consultation paper by email to legandregreform@health.vic.gov.au.
Submissions will be accepted until midnight 31 May 2024.
You may use the feedback template to submit your response or provide your feedback in another written format.
Submissions will not be made public, however an anonymised summary of submissions may be published. Please clearly indicate if you do not wish any part of your submission to be made public by marking your submission as ‘private and confidential’.
Please read the privacy collection notice included in the consultation paper before submitting.
Contact
For more information about the consultation process, email legandregreform@health.vic.gov.au.
Reviewed 29 April 2024