Queensland defies federal government intervention in trans treatment review
Queensland is set to defy the Albanese government’s request to pause its investigation into gender transition therapies to make way for a federal review.
Queensland is poised to defy the Albanese government’s request to pause its probe into gender transition therapies to make way for a federal review, as Peter Dutton accuses Labor of attempting to “cauterise” the issue ahead of an election.
After federal Health Minister Mark Butler cautioned the Queensland government against continuing with its own probe of hormone therapy, Premier David Crisafulli vowed on Sunday to push ahead with the evidence review of gender dysphoria treatments across the state.
Mr Butler launched the federal probe into transgender treatments for children and teenagers on Friday, revealing he had told Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls it would not be “appropriate” for the state’s review to continue at the same time.
Declaring that the federal review due by mid-next year did not “impact” Queensland’s investigation, Mr Crisafulli said his government’s freeze on hormone therapies for new patients under 18 and broad investigation into gender treatments would continue.
The response was announced last week after an internal investigation into Cairns Sexual Health Service found patients aged between 12 and 18 had been treated outside best practice guidelines.
“We took our decision based on what unfolded in Cairns,” Mr Crisafulli said. “On the back of that, we’ve decided to make sure we do that review, and that we do it in a way that has one factor, and that is making sure that kids are safe – all kids, kids in the program and other kids.
“And we’ve made sure to be very sensitive in the way we discuss that.”
The federal Opposition Leader backed the Queensland government’s right to conduct its own inquiry into gender transition therapies simultaneously, saying the states had their “own constitutional rights” to take action.
“But if the government’s just trying to cauterise an issue before the election, which I suspect is what they’re trying to do and just park it, then I think this is a more serious issue than that, that needs to be given proper consideration and hopefully it will during the course of the inquiry,” Mr Dutton told the ABC’s Insiders.
Mr Dutton also praised the West Australian government’s decisions “in relation to these matters”.
A WA government spokeswoman said the government supported the federal review and there were no plans to ban gender treatment services in the state. “WA continues to monitor emerging best practice across the world, and we support efforts to ensure treatment guidelines are of the highest standard,” she said.
Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey said Mr Butler’s intervention would raise a constitutional issue only if the federal government tried to legislate to prevent a state inquiry from going ahead.
“Governments are perfectly entitled to co-operate amongst each other and to try and seek to do things in a manner that won’t cause conflict,” Professor Twomey said.
“So it’s perfectly fine for one level of government to ask another to not go ahead with something at a particular occasion because it’s sensitive.
“There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but it’s not that one level of government has a power to exclude another level of government from inquiring into matters, unless there’s some kind of a conflict under section 109 of the Constitution.
“So that would mean that you’d have to have a commonwealth law that operated in such a way as to prevent the state from doing something, which is not the case here.”
Constitutional expert Greg Craven said Queensland had the right to hold its inquiry as a state. “The commonwealth has no power to stop it,” he said. “It can only ask, and Queensland can say no.”
Queensland’s inquiry and freeze on new hormone treatment was announced following allegations a 12-year-old in Cairns was given puberty blockers without parental consent or appropriate medical guidance.
The three-part investigation will probe the Cairns facility’s adherence to best practice and also review gender treatment broadly across the state.
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