AMA Victoria met today with the Minister for Health and senior Department of Health officials to discuss the Health Safeguards for People Born with Variations in Sex Characteristics Bill 2025.
AMA Victoria was represented at the meeting by President Dr Simon Judkins and AMA Victoria Board member Dr Desiree Yap, Specialist Obstetrician and Gynaecologist.
We thank the Minister and the Department for their engagement and for the opportunity to discuss these matters directly. These are complex and sensitive issues. There is a shared commitment to achieving the best possible care and outcomes for children. The challenge lies in determining how that objective is best realised in practice.
It is important to note that views within the medical profession are not uniform. Some practitioners support the introduction of a legislated oversight framework in this area. AMA Victoria has listened carefully to those perspectives and reflected them in our broader engagement with government. At the same time, we have outlined a range of concerns about the Bill’s practical operation and its potential implications for care delivery and the medical workforce.
In the meeting, we noted that the Government has taken on board some of our earlier feedback. This includes refinements to definitions, recognition of the need for increased medical expertise within oversight structures, and acknowledgement that clinically urgent matters require timely pathways. The Bill also relies on general treatment plans to reduce duplication. The Minister indicated that implementation is intended to be careful and staged.
We were clear, however, that these steps do not resolve all outstanding issues, particularly those that will arise in day-to-day clinical practice.
A central issue remains the Bill’s decision to regulate this area of paediatric care through a diagnosis-specific statutory and criminal framework. The Government was frank that this is intentional. From AMA Victoria’s perspective, this raises questions about consistency across paediatrics, and about whether comparable interventions with lifelong implications are being treated differently in law, with attendant risks.
The criminal offence provisions were raised as an immediate concern, beyond these broader philosophical and equity questions. While the Minister emphasised that the threshold for criminal liability is intended to be high, and that pre-approved general treatment plans are designed to provide confidence, the inclusion of imprisonment as a sanction is causing significant anxiety for many clinicians and may affect willingness to practise in this area.
We also raised implementation risks. Many interventions relevant to this cohort are developmentally time-sensitive without being urgent in a narrow sense. Delay, uncertainty or layered approvals risk poorer outcomes. There remains scepticism that these risks can be fully mitigated in practice without clearer timelines, strong clinical leadership within decision-making bodies, and safeguards that support clinicians acting appropriately in complex circumstances.
More broadly, the discussion sits within a context of strong feeling among parts of the profession. AMA Victoria continues to hear concerns that the framework may be perceived as singling out doctors in this field, despite substantial evolution in multidisciplinary, evidence-based care. These views are often linked to concerns about the depth and breadth of consultation prior to the Bill’s introduction.
The Minister indicated that the legislation is not intended to be static, and that there may be scope to revisit aspects of the scheme over time as implementation progresses. We welcomed the Government’s invitation for AMA Victoria to continue engaging on implementation in good faith, including on how the scheme operates in practice.
AMA Victoria will remain constructively engaged. If a statutory framework is to proceed, our focus will be on ensuring it is clinically workable, proportionate, and supports high-quality care for children and families, while minimising unintended consequences for patients and the workforce.
We will keep members informed as the Bill progresses.