Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Assisted reproductive treatment services

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:20): (1624) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for their advocacy to ensure that the regulation of IVF is on the national agenda. Many of us were deeply disturbed by the recent news of an embryo mix-up at Monash’s IVF clinic in Brisbane that led to a woman giving birth to a stranger’s child.

The licensing body for these clinics is the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee. Their latest report showed a troubling trend: the number of identification and traceability breaches more than doubled in Australia and in New Zealand in the last financial year. Equally troubling was a 2022 report by the Victorian Agency for Health Information that suggested IVF clinics might be under-reporting dangerous incidents.

In the midst of these concerns our former fertility regulator, the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority, or VARTA, was tasked with undertaking a review. Unfortunately, late last year the Victorian government decided to wind up the regulator and transfer many of these responsibilities to the Department of Health. We opposed the legislation for this change. No-one could explain to us why this change was necessary. The legislation did pass, and VARTA was dissolved. We remain concerned that the Department of Health is not equipped to deliver a similar level of wraparound services. As a donor-conceived person myself, if a service provider like VARTA had been available to me and my family, I believe my experience would have been very different.

I was also deeply troubled by the timing of this change. This major shake-up was being proposed at the same time the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand was calling for a national reform to ensure uniform regulation of fertility care, including IVF. Federal health minister Mark Butler said if re-elected their government would ensure the regulation of IVF was on the agenda at the next health minister meeting. Well, the election has come and gone, and their government has had a resounding re-election. Now it is time to fix the dangerous patchwork regulation of IVF in this country. So I ask: will the minister advocate to ensure that the regulation of IVF is on the national agenda?