Here’s an update on a few of the issues AMA Victoria is working on for members, including:
Victorian Firearms Review - AMA Victoria Submission
E-scooter safety and regulation
Medical certificates of cause of death- duration fields- advocacy update
Victorian Firearms Review- AMA Victoria Submission
AMA Victoria has made a submission to the Victorian Government’s Rapid Review of Firearms Laws, framing firearms regulation as a matter of public health and community safety.
The submission draws on longstanding AMA policy and Australia’s experience since the 1996 National Firearms Agreement, which demonstrates that strong, nationally consistent regulation reduces firearm deaths and serious injury. These impacts are seen by doctors across emergency medicine, trauma, mental health, general practice and rehabilitation services.
While Victoria’s current framework has contributed to comparatively low rates of firearm harm, the submission notes that emerging risks, technological change and recent national developments justify further strengthening.
Key issues raised include the absence of a numerical cap on firearms that can be held by an individual, risks associated with emerging technologies such as privately made and 3D-printed firearms, and the importance of licensing systems that prioritise safety through rigorous entry assessment, renewal and ongoing monitoring.
The submission also identifies diversion from the legal market as a major public safety concern. Evidence provided to national police working groups indicates that theft from lawful owners is a significant contributor to illicit firearms nationally, reinforcing the importance of robust storage, handling and inspection requirements.
While firearms registries operate in each jurisdiction, the submission notes that the absence of a fully digitised and interoperable national system limits their effectiveness. It calls for modernising and integrating registry systems to strengthen licensing oversight, traceability and cross-border information sharing, reduce regulatory fragmentation and lower the risk of firearms being misused or diverted.
The submission concludes with the basic point hat reducing firearm availability and lethality reduces injury and preventable death, and that the Rapid Review provides an opportunity to modernise Victoria’s framework in line with established public health evidence.
E-scooter safety and regulation
AMA Victoria has written to both the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments calling for stronger regulation of high-powered e-scooters, following the findings of the coronial inquest into the death of Moustafa Aboueid.
The correspondence builds on AMA Victoria’s consistent advocacy since the 2023 e-scooter trial period, where we raised concerns about injury burden, enforcement limitations and the absence of comprehensive health data to inform regulatory decision-making. The coronial findings now provide an independent and authoritative assessment that reinforces those concerns.
The Coroner found that Mr Aboueid died after riding a privately owned e-scooter at an estimated 50-60 km/h without a helmet. The device was capable of operating well beyond lawful speeds and was inherently unstable at higher speeds in ordinary suburban road conditions. These findings closely reflect injury patterns long observed by clinicians in emergency departments and trauma services.
In Victoria, AMA Victoria has strongly supported the Coroner’s recommendation to amend the Road Safety Act to allow forfeiture of high-powered and high-speed e-scooters when used on public roads or road-related areas. At the Commonwealth level, AMA Victoria has called for a review of the current treatment of high-speed e-scooters under the Road Vehicle Standards Act, including reconsideration of whether these devices should continue to sit outside the definition of road vehicles, and stronger controls on their importation and sale, subject to tightly controlled exemptions.
Across both letters, we emphasised the need for coordinated national regulation alongside robust state-level enforcement, to prevent foreseeable and preventable harm rather than leaving jurisdictions to manage downstream consequences once unsafe devices are already in circulation.
Medical certificates of cause of death- duration fields - advocacy update
AMA Victoria has received confirmation from the Department of Government Services that changes will be made to the electronic Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) and Medical Certificate of Cause of Perinatal Death (MCCPD) forms, following sustained advocacy on behalf of members.
In August 2025, AMA Victoria wrote to the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages supporting reform to the mandatory duration fields required when certifying causes of death. Members had raised longstanding concerns that these fields often require guesswork or lead to the omission of clinically important conditions, undermining the accuracy and integrity of mortality data.
DGS has now advised that, in the first quarter of 2026, the mandatory requirement to complete a duration when listing a cause of death will be removed. This change will apply to all fields where a corresponding duration is currently requested and brings the electronic certification process closer to clinical practice and long-standing paper-based norms.