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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-25 Daily Xml
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Ministerial Statement

IRIS SYSTEMS

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:59): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Last year the Anti-Corruption Branch of South Australia Police and the Government Investigations Unit launched investigations into allegations regarding misuse of intellectual property for software known as IRIS2 at IMVS. I also made the Auditor-General aware of this issue. In April this year SAPOL referred the matter to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Today I inform the house that the Office of the DPP has recently advised that there is no reasonable prospect of conviction of any person for an offence in relation to these allegations. The Department of Health is now seeking further legal advice from the Crown Solicitor's Office about other remedies that might be available in relation to the software.

Meanwhile, as I have previously informed the house this year, separate questions have been raised about the conduct of several former employees at Medvet. Medvet is the company incorporated by IMVS to commercialise its intellectual property. This issue was immediately reported to SAPOL, who will be investigating those allegations. They have also been referred to the Auditor-General. The government has been progressing its policy of making IMVS and, in turn, Medvet more accountable and to make its governance more robust.

Until 1 July this year, IMVS was a statutory authority that was responsible to its own independent board. IMVS had is own chief executive who reported to the board. It operated with a high degree of autonomy as was required by the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science Act 1982. On 1 July 2008, the IMVS Act was repealed by parliament and the IMVS was thereby dissolved as a separate statutory authority.

The new Health Care Act 2008 enabled the merging of IMVS with other government pathology services to form one pathology service called SA Pathology. SA Pathology is now part of the Central Northern Adelaide Health Service. SA Pathology is now responsible to the Chief Executive of SA Health, and through him to the Minister for Health.

Also, since the repeal of the IMVS Act, changes have been made to the constitution of Medvet to allow its operations to be directed with greater transparency and consistency with general government aims and policies. The government has now appointed a new set of directors to the Medvet board following these governance changes. The government is also continuing to investigate the finances and use of intellectual property at Medvet. It is worth noting again that the opposition opposed those governance changes to IMVS and Medvet.

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