Over on the ABC, Mark Butler has been asked whether he would be potentially open to a national regulatory system for IVF clinics. He answers:

I definitely am. I’m very keen to look at proposals to take over regulation from the industry itself. I think self-regulation isn’t working, and I don’t think it’s inspiring the confidence that parents need. But also because of the nature of IVF, it really cropped up in state children’s hospitals. We’ve got eight different systems of regulation around the country, and I think there’s a very strong argument to consider a single national scheme of regulation that obviously regulates the operators themselves, some of which have come under a spotlight for very good reason over recent months, but also things like sperm donor laws which have been the subject of more recent stories.

The question comes following more stories like this, from the ABC.