Anglo-Australian coronial law reform: the widening gap

The Coroners Act 2009 (UK) has made disappointingly little progress toward a modern, integrated, prevention-focused coronial system for the United Kingdom. The opportunities afforded by the Shipman scandal and an exhaustive consultation process have yielded remarkably little by way of substantive reform and professionalisation of what is an increasingly outmoded system for investigating death in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, By contrast, during 2008 and 2009 New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria have each built upon the reform initiatives of New Zealand's Coroners Act 2006 (NZ) to introduce important and innovative amendments to their coronial jurisdictions' capacity to investigate deaths. It is to be hoped that in due course the diversity of Australian coronial legislation will be addressed by nationally consistent legislation.