How a long-forgotten episode involving the wrongful conviction of 15,000 Australians for unproven welfare offences prompted the creation of the Robodebt scheme

Recent legislative reforms to abortion law in New South Wales gave rise to vigorous public and media discourse. This post seeks to provide some clarifications across several related but legally and ethically distinct domains in health law.

I was recently asked to answer a few questions about the effects of the Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Bill 2025 (NSW), which was recently introduced by Greens Member of Parliament Dr Amanda Cohn, MLC.

Recently, the defence of sexsomnia — a subcategory of the so-called ‘sane automatism’ defence — has been a source of disquiet and concern in the UK and now Australia. The defence rests on the ancient criminal law doctrine that only voluntary acts will give rise to criminal liability and involuntary acts are excused. But what reform, if any, could appropriately address the concerns of victim survivors and other advocates?

Can an employer be liable for causing psychiatric injuries to an employee if they terminate them in a manner that amounts to a breach of contract? A majority of the High Court has confirmed that, if certain criteria are met, contract law will aid the plaintiff.

What are the implications of the TGA’s stricter approach to cosmetic treatment promotions? And how might the TGA’s regulatory approach interact with the law of negligence that requires practitioners to warn patients of inherent material risks?

Income apportionment and the FTXB test case With lead author Dr Darren O’Donovan (senior lecturer in administrative law at La Trobe), I have authored a blog post on a significant test case recently heard by the President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Justice Kyrou, and two senior members, called FTXB; Secretary, Department of Social Services […]

Today I’ve written a short reflection on AHPRA and the Medical Board of Australia’s (MBA) proposed options to reform the regulation of ‘late-career medical practitioners’ — ie, doctors over 70 years old — by requiring them to undergo regular health assessments. I will mostly let my short analysis published in the Conversation, speak for itself. […]

The most recent two issues of the Journal of Law and Medicine carry articles authored or co-authored by me. The first is lead-authored by Mike O’Connor (with me and Cameron Stewart) and is titled ‘Sexual Boundary Violations by Doctors – Context, Regulatory Consequences and Preventive Strategies’ (see PMID 38761390). In that paper, we discuss the […]

Last week, the biotech firm eGenesis supplied a donor kidney sourced from a genome-edited pig to a surgical team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US. The donated kidney was transplanted into a patient with end-stage renal disease whose existing kidney transplant (‘allotransplanted’ from a human) was wearing out. The FDA had granted an […]

Today on Welfare Law in Australia, Darren O’ Donovan analyses an internal document released under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) just a few days ago. That document reveals the inner working of Services Australia as it continues in its efforts to remediate a multi-decade calculation blunder likely affecting more than 100,000 people. What […]

Fidge v Pfizer is notable for making several provisional holdings. Among those was Rofe J’s holding that it is not a ‘necessary incident of medical practice’ for doctors to challenge government decisions based on alleged breaches of legislation, even when done in a purported attempt to protect patients’ health.

On our welfare law substack Welfare Law in Australia, Dr Darren O’Donovan writes about the saddening fact that some one million Centrelink claims are at the moment awaiting assessment and determination. O’Donovan analyses the causes of this unsustainable backlog and the way it might be solved.

This post is a brief discussion of three media contributions I have made in the last few months.

I recently spoke on a panel of three at the second annual Australian Progressive Legal Studies Conference. The theme of the conference was ‘Law and Class in the 21st Century: Australia and Beyond.’
The roundtable comprised Scarlet Wilcock (University of Sydney Law School), Asher Wolf (independent activist) and me. It was focused on robodebt. The text of my address is below.

In late November, I presented a paper via video link to the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Heath Law (AABHL) on ‘risk-based regulation.’ The abstract for that paper was as follows: What risk? A critical analysis of risk-based regulation of therapeutic goods, from stem cell medicine to osseointegration devices Therapeutic goods (medicines, biologicals and devices) […]

This month has been a busy month for my semi-scholarly work. At the start of the month, I wrote this piece for the Conversation about the so-called crackdown on the cosmetics procedures sector announced by AHPRA around 7 September 2023. Following the publication of that piece, I was lucky to be asked to appear on […]

Legal errors impacting those entitled to social security benefits continue to arise in Australia

On 2 August 2023, the Commonwealth Ombudsman published a terse report outlining its findings after an investigation into the lawfulness of ‘income apportioning’ — a method of debt calculation used by Australian welfare agencies DHS and DSS since at least 2003 (ie, for more than 17 years). As the Report states, this process, as it […]

After several years of controversy, and both praise and blame for his willingness to perform high-risk surgeries, neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been subject to practice restrictions by a special committee established under health practitioner law. So how does the process of restricting doctors’ medical practice work? And what did this mean for Teo? How are […]

After a long journey that should have been no surprise whatsoever (not when one looks at the scale and size of this volume), a book chapter I authored with Emeritus Distinguished Prof Dianne Nicol from the University of Tasmania’s Centre for Law and Genetics, way back in 2021, has now been published. The chapter deals […]

Yesterday I delivered a presentation on the regulation of stem cell-based interventions in Australia, focusing on the theory and practice of risk-based regulation and on some new developments in this regulatory environment. The talk was a part of the Cellular Horizons research grant that has been awarded to a team of scholars of which I […]

The proposed ACT approval model Recently, I was interviewed by the young journalistic team at SIX News Australia about a Bill that the ACT Government introduced into its single-house Parliament in late March 2023. As I see it, the proposed Bill, if passed, will be transformative. And in a good way. It will require interventions […]

My submission to the Inquiry into Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023 Bill may be found here.

I was interviewed alongside two leading voices in plastic and cosmetic surgery on 2SER

Disturbing reports about botched cosmetic surgeries and injuries in Australia – from breast augmentations causing chronic pain to liposuction leaving patients with lifelong injuries – have sparked concerns in recent years. Several high-profile cosmetic surgeons alleged to have fallen short of expected professional standards have been disciplined. Last year, a class action was commenced against […]

Cellular Horizons is a Medical Research Future Fund project investigating how consumers (and health practitioners) can improve decisions about accessing cellular therapies.

In November I delivered two conference papers. I summarise them below.

If you’re thinking about a tummy tuck, breast implants or eyelid surgery, you might be looking for reassurance your chosen doctor is qualified and has the right skills for the job. Today’s release of the much anticipated review of how cosmetic surgery is regulated in Australia goes partway to achieving that. The review makes several sensible […]

Mainstream critical legal education in Australia gives little attention to enactments and case law regulating the Commonwealth’s constitutional power to appropriate (s 81) and spend money (s 83). This neglect has several causes, including a shallow knowledge base. Few legal scholars have engaged with reforms aimed at increasing the public administration of government spending, much […]

Overruling Roe and Casey I’m very disappointed by the result of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The majority holding of the SCOTUS opinion (authored by Justice Alito) is summarised in the headnote as follows: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion […]

In short, because the texts don’t constitute ‘advertising.’

Recently, a new Bill to allow mitochondrial donation was tabled in the federal Parliament. Will it achieve all that it promises?

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has been more vigilant in policing advertisements for unproven COVID-19 ‘treatments’. But have some slipped through the cracks?

Reading Goodrich’s “Proboscations” Just a short note to recommend Peter Goodrich’s remarkable new article, “Proboscations: Excavations in Comedy and Law,” published in the Winter 2017 issue of Critical Inquiry (volume 43, issue 2), “Comedy: An Issue,” edited by Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai. I’m sure that there are many fantastic pieces to be discovered in this installment […]

This year I’ll commence a short-term “project-to-publication” fellowship with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. It will transpire only for a short 6 months, so I’ll have to make the most of it. One of the things that the Centre encourages its researchers to do is regularly blog about […]