HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-24 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Coroners (Undetermined Natural Causes) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Received from the House of Assembly and read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:08): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I introduce the Coroners (Undetermined Natural Causes) Amendment Bill 2020. The bill amends the Coroners Act 2003 to allow the state Coroner to return a finding of undetermined natural causes in appropriate cases. The bill is intended to ensure efficient use of state forensic resources and to spare families the stress of a coronial investigation where possible.

The role of the state Coroner is to investigate certain South Australian deaths to determine the cause of death. Section 29 of the Coroners Act requires that a cause of death be found for each and every death reported to the state Coroner. A reportable death is defined in section 2 of the Coroners Act and covers a wide range of circumstances, including deaths by unexpected, unnatural, unusual, violent or unknown causes; deaths that occur within 24 hours of being discharged from a hospital or having sought emergency treatment at a hospital; deaths of persons protected under guardianship or administration orders; and deaths in custody.

If a death is reportable, a person becoming aware of the death must report it to the state Coroner or a police officer. In some cases, forensic pathologists or other medical practitioners can be confident that a death was due to natural and unsuspicious causes but a post-mortem examination is required to determine the precise cause of death; for example, whether the natural death was due to pulmonary embolism or ischaemic heart disease.

In these circumstances, the act requires that forensic testing on the deceased be performed regardless of the family's wishes and the public interest in performing such testing. The bill instead provides the state Coroner with a discretion to state that a death was due to undetermined natural causes and to discontinue the investigation. Under the bill, it is proposed that the state Coroner's discretion is subject to several safeguarding conditions.

First, the finding of undetermined natural causes cannot be made if an inquest is required. Under the act, some deaths reported to the state Coroner are subject to a hearing by the Coroners Court, known as an inquest. The court hears evidence about the surrounding circumstances of the death to provide extra oversight and to ascertain whether and how the death could have been prevented. A full court inquest into the cause and circumstances of a death requires precise findings. An undetermined natural causes finding is not appropriate if the matter will be progressed to an inquest.

Secondly, to use the undetermined natural causes finding the state Coroner must be satisfied, after obtaining relevant medical information or advice, that the death was due to natural causes. A natural cause death refers to a death due to an illness or internal malfunction of the body rather than directly caused by external factors. To illustrate, naturally occurring diseases, degenerative ageing or congenital anomalies are natural causes of death. Accidents, animal attacks, suicide or homicide are not natural causes.

Thirdly, a senior next of kin of the deceased person must give their consent for the state Coroner to cease testing and return a finding of undetermined natural causes. New South Wales has a similar provision in their Coroners Act and, in their experience, the next of kin frequently support the decision to cease testing as the coronial process can be very stressful for families of the deceased. The state Coroner retains the ultimate discretion as to whether to use the undetermined natural causes finding. They will be able to continue investigation into any death by natural causes if they consider it is in the public interest, even if the senior next of kin would prefer that investigation cease.

It is expected that the bill will help to reduce the workload on Forensic Science SA, which performs the necessary forensic testing for coronial investigations. The pathologists at Forensic Science SA experience a heavy workload and the demands on their time are great. Several government measures are being implemented to assist with this workload, including this bill. Another effort is the government commitment to fund an on-site CT scanner at Forensic Science SA.

Work on this bill has been underway for some months and is part of the government's justice agenda that aims to ensure that policies and legislation reflect contemporary South Australian needs. However, reducing the burden on Forensic Science SA has become particularly critical due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the coming months, it is expected that all government services will experience strain due to staff illness and isolation. Forensic Science SA will face particular difficulties due to the nature of their work. Forensic testing on deceased persons cannot be postponed or done from home. Therefore this bill, which will reduce the need for forensic testing by Forensic Science SA, is critical.

I commend the bill to the council and seek to insert the explanation of clauses in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary

1—Short title

2—Amendment provisions

These clauses are formal.

Part 2—Amendment of Coroners Act 2003

3—Amendment of section 29—Finding to be made as to cause of notified reportable death

This clause amends section 29 to allow the Coroner to make a finding that a death was due to undetermined natural causes if:

no inquest was required; and

after relevant medical advice, the Coroner has reasonable grounds to believe that the death was due to natural causes; and

a senior next of kin indicates consent to having no further investigation, inquiry or inquest conducted for the purpose of determining the precise cause of death.

Schedule 1—Transitional provision

1—Operation of amendment

The amendment applies in relation to a reportable death regardless of whether the State Coroner was notified of the death before or after its commencement.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (16:12): I rise to indicate that I will be the lead speaker and have conduct of this bill for the opposition. I indicate that the opposition supports the passage of this bill. Once the chamber is ready, we will be facilitating it as quickly as the government wishes through all stages so it can be enacted.

The Leader of the Government in this place has outlined succinctly what this bill does. It is a reasonably simple bill in effect. It means that reportable deaths, which are defined in section 3 (the interpretation section) of the Coroners Act 2003, can be defined as deaths by 'undetermined natural causes' if two condition precedents exist: firstly, that the state Coroner believes that the death was due to natural causes, but, secondly and importantly, that a senior next of kin of the deceased person—and the bill in a cascading flow outlines who the next of kin is—indicates in writing their consent to such. As the leader has outlined, there is the protection that, even if the Coroner wishes to do this, if the senior next of kin for the deceased does not then it goes the way that it does currently under the act.

Reportable deaths are not just things like unexpected, unnatural, unusual, violent or unknown deaths, or deaths in custody. Reportable deaths relate to certain classes of people. They have been outlined in the leader's second reading explanation. They include a person who has been discharged from a hospital after being an inpatient within the last 24 hours or a person having sought emergency treatment at a hospital within the last 24 hours; or classes of people, such as protected persons under the Aged and Infirm Persons' Property Act or the Guardianship and Administration Act or the minister or chief executive under the Children and Young People (Safety) Act.

Any person who falls into that category of person, as the Leader of the Government outlined, may have multiple possible reasons, all being related natural causes, that could have caused the death, including various respiratory conditions or heart conditions. As it currently stands, if you are one of the people who fall into one of those categories, the Coroner is required to state the cause of death, and if that requires a full investigation and autopsies, the Coroner is required to do that.

Under the changes that are being proposed here, if the Coroner, again with those two conditions precedent, after having obtained medical information or advice, has reasonable grounds to believe it was due to natural causes, with the concurrence in writing of the senior next of kin can make the finding that the death was due to undetermined natural causes.

I thank the Attorney for a briefing on this bill last night and although, as it has been explained, this bill is not about what we face with coronavirus per se, it does mean that it might lighten some of the workload that the Coroner, the Coroners Court and the Coroner's Office may face. If there were a large number of deaths that could be due to an underlying virus or other condition but end up being due to natural causes, then this may help the Coroner to undertake their workload.

There was discussion with the Attorney-General about the possibility of a legislated review of the operation of this new part of the act. Rather than hold the passage of this bill up with a legislated review, I note the Attorney-General put on the record in her contributions in the other place an undertaking that within 12 months of this act coming into operation, after 12 months within 30 days, the Attorney will furnish to the parliament a review of the operation of this particular clause that includes the number of times this particular clause has been used. I thank the Attorney for placing that on the record in the other place, which gives us more confidence to pass this.

The Attorney did explain that this is not something that has been requested or come to light in very recent times with the current crisis in mind but has been around for quite some time. With the possibility that the Coroner's workload may increase, and may have deaths due to natural causes regardless of the initial infection that a person may get, it is an opportune time to have this passed to make sure the Coroner's Office, the Coroners Court and the state Coroner can perform their duties effectively and efficiently. As I indicated, we stand ready to pass this as quickly as the government wishes it to be passed this week.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:17): The Greens will be supporting this legislation. We understand that it is not specifically related to the COVID-19 public emergency. However, clearly it is relevant to the emergency. In a nutshell, I think what we all expect of the Coroner is that he or she will investigate things that need to be investigated, but sometimes the response is 'nothing to see here'. A death is certainly sad, devastating perhaps, but if there is nothing particularly unusual about it then it is not something that need occupy a lot of the Coroner's time. I note that the Coroner's Office is particularly snowed under at the moment, and in fact it is taking some years for many cases to be finalised, so I do not think we want to be adding unnecessarily to that work pressure.

I note, as has already been said, that the concept of reportable deaths is much wider than what many people would think of, in terms of accidents and the like, and it does include people who have died who have recently been in hospital or who were in hospital. I think we do need to narrow the scope. The lens through which we should look at this bill, I think, would be whether someone could fall victim to foul play and find that it was just hidden amongst a statistic of COVID diseases. I think the prospect of that is extremely low. I take some comfort from the fact that the Coroner is still able, on the basis of information provided by anyone, to look into a death. The fact that it might not be formally reportable does not mean that the Coroner cannot look at it. I think that is an important check and balance.

I would say finally that we would all sincerely hope that we do not get to the situation that has apparently been reached in Italy, where the hospital staff find themselves with the appalling job of triaging who gets the ventilator and who does not. As Norman Swan of the ABC put it very bluntly some days ago, people over 60 are being pushed into the corner to die. In the context of the South Australian hospital system, if anyone suffered such neglect in the hospital system you would think that the Coroner would absolutely want to know about that and would make recommendations and want to report.

I think there would still be scope in circumstances like that because the next of kin, I am sure, would no doubt be crying out for someone to have a good look at what happened to their loved one. Let's hope and actively work towards minimising the spread of this virus and hope that we never get to the situation they have arrived at in Italy, that our health workers are never put in that position of having to make those life-and-death choices. When it comes to freeing up the Coroner to properly investigate those cases that genuinely deserve her or his attention, I think this bill does achieve that objective. The Greens are happy to support it at the second reading and through the remainder of its stages today.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT