Coroners Amendment Bill

The closing date for submissions is 11.59pm on Wednesday, 28 September 2022

The Justice Committee has called for public submissions on the Coroners Amendment Bill. The bill seeks to facilitate better access to justice for families interacting with the coronial system by making amendments to the Coroners Act 2006. The bill aims to reduce the distress caused to grieving families by reducing the time spent waiting for coronial findings.

The bill would amend the Act by:

• establishing a new position of a coronial associate, which could undertake many of the more straightforward functions, powers, and duties currently performed or exercised by coroners
• making it clear that coroners could record a cause of death as “unascertained natural causes” if they considered that the death was from natural causes and no further investigation was required under the Act
• enabling coroners to decide whether a coronial inquiry should include an inquest
• enabling coroners to issue written findings stating only the cause of death, and not the circumstances, if they considered that there was no public interest in making findings about the broader circumstances.

This bill is available online from the ‘Related links’ panel.

What do you need to know?

• Submissions are publicly released and published to the Parliament website. Only your name or organisation’s name is required on a submission. Please keep your contact details separate, as if they are included on the submission they will become publicly available when the submission is released.
• If you wish to include information of a private or personal nature in your submission you should discuss this with the clerk of the committee before submitting.
• If you wish to speak to your submission, please state this clearly.

Further guidance on making a submission can be found from the ‘How to make a submission’ link in the ‘Related documents’ panel.

If you have any questions about your submission or the submission process please contact the Committee Staff through the contact details provided on this page.