‘COMPLAINT DISMISSED’: Is Australia's Veterinary Regulatory System Rigged Against the Pet Owner Just As New Zealand's Is?
In One State Alone, the Research Shows A Non-Credible 72% Complaint Dismissal Rate
If you are an Australian pet owner who has tried to hold a veterinarian accountable for negligence, malpractice, or clinical misconduct — and found the process going nowhere — you’re not alone. In fact, you are far from alone. Very far from alone.
Just as in New Zealand, the “system” is set up to make sure of it.
In one state alone, New South Wales, research showed that, of a decade of complaints lodged with the Veterinary Practitioners Board of NSW (i.e. from 2007 to 2016), 72% were dismissed.
Nearly three quarters of all complaints - unbelievably - were what . . . wholly unfounded?
The breakdown of what happened to the remaining 28% is equally telling:
Nineteen percent resulted in a “caution” to the vet, 3% in a “reprimand”, 4% were withdrawn by the complainant (those “withdrawals” would be worth an investigation in their own right), and in only 2% of cases was a vet removed from the register.
These figures were documented in a presentation by John Baguley, Registrar of the Veterinary Practitioners Board of NSW, and have been reported by the Australian magazine, 'Vet Practice' magazine.
In only two percent of complaints did an offending veterinarian have their practicing licence revoked. Really? YES. Two out of every 100 complaints.
What are the chances that 98 out of every 100 formal complaints weren’t worthy of the vet losing his or her licence, in the interests of not repeating their attitudes or actions with other clients’ pets?
Nil, we venture to say . . . and with good reason, as we demonstrate here, here, here, here and here. Albeit, these are New Zealand examples, the statistics alone demonstrate that the picture is the same on both sides of the Tasman.
The other key point is, that those 100 complaints would have represented nothing more than the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of those cases in which a complaint was well-justified but wasn’t laid. Or was obstructed and prevented from being laid.
In New Zealand, the equivalent “Complaint Dismissed” figure is 67.2% — as documented in the Veterinary Council of New Zealand's (VCNZ) own published research over a 24-year period. The report, ironically, was co-authored by a VCNZ council member who simultaneously holds a senior academic position at New Zealand's only veterinary teaching hospital, Massey University, as does or recently did the VCNZ's "Professional Advisor" . . . the "advisor" who advises the VCNZ's Complaints Committee (featuring Massey's Dean of Veterinary Education) on pet owner complaints . . . including against Massey.
You get the picture.
In short, and by way of notable understatement, whether in Australia or New Zealand, the overwhelming majority of complaints against veterinarians are dismissed . . . Veterinarians "investigated" by veterinarians for veterinarians . . . who investigated themselves and found they had committed no wrongdoing.
If you’ve clicked through to the above-cited articles and taken a read of any of them, you’ll see that the veterinary regulatory scene in both countries has been specifically architected to ensure exactly that.
A Fragmented System That Serves the Profession & the Profession Only
Australia's veterinary complaints system is state-based — each state and territory operating its own board under its own legislation.
The Australian Veterinary Boards Council (AVBC) sits above them all as an accrediting body but directs complainants back to individual state boards. There is no national veterinary regulator with the power (or, we would argue, the will) to compel action (see the Correspondence section of this IIIVE Case Study).
This creates the sort of circular “go nowhere” outcome for pet owners seeking accountability for malpractice or other adverse outcomes.
The AVBC accredits both Australian veterinary schools and New Zealand's Massey University — the institution currently under MPI investigation. (Massey has no complaints function of its own.) Anyone who tries to lay a complaint with the institution directly will find themselves going around in an even smaller circular web of stonewalling and frustration. What's more, speaking out too widely, may bring legal threats from Massey management with a taxpayer-funded open chequebook for legal services to protect institutional reputations, student enrolment numbers, joint ventures and fragile egos.)
What Options Do Australian Pet Owners Have?
If your complaint has been dismissed by a state veterinary board, you are not without options — but they require persistence and often legal advice:
Your state Ombudsman can review how the board handled your complaint if you believe the process was flawed.
Consumer protection legislation — depending on the nature of the conduct, state consumer affairs bodies may have jurisdiction over misleading or deceptive conduct by veterinary practices.
Civil action — Australian courts are increasingly grappling with claims involving companion animal death and injury as pet ownership carries greater emotional and financial weight.
For examples of other laws and regulations under which dodgy veterinary practices and practitioners can be liable, take a read of this article – which again, references the Massey malpractice and malfeasance case. It also demonstrates, by way of the numerous breaches of the Code of Professional Conduct for Veterinarians laid out in detail, exactly how intentionally “deaf” veterinary industry regulator organisations are prepared to wilfully be.
In terms of publicly funded veterinary teaching institutions, the staff of these — at all levels of their personnel hierarchy — are, in most cases, considered members of the public service. This matters significantly for pet owners seeking accountability, because it opens the door to a legal remedy that goes beyond professional misconduct complaints to a veterinary board of the complained-about veterinarians' peers and industry colleagues.
The tort of Misfeasance in Public Office — well-established in common law jurisdictions including Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom — applies where a public officer acts in bad faith, knowing that their conduct is unlawful, or with reckless indifference to the likelihood that it will cause harm to an identifiable person or class of persons. In a veterinary teaching hospital context, this would apply across numerous instances, for example, where staff or management have knowingly falsified clinical records, coerced consent to a procedure under false pretences, or deliberately obstructed a client's ability to lay a formal complaint — all while being aware that such conduct would cause harm to the pet owner.
Critically, the tort does not require that a professional conduct complaint succeed — or even be accepted. It operates independently of any regulatory process, and can be pursued through the civil courts.
IIIVE is currently investigating the application of this tort in the context of the Harry Kelly case in New Zealand, where documented evidence of record falsification, a fabricated terminal diagnosis, and the deliberate obstruction of the complaints process by both the treating institution and its regulatory body is the subject of an active government animal welfare investigation.
IIIVE's Position & Ongoing Commitment to Regulatory Capture
The International Institute for Improvement in Veterinary Ethics (IIIVE) exists because these problems are not confined to one country.
The structural capture of veterinary regulation by the profession it is supposed to oversee, the protection of teaching hospitals from accountability, and the dismissal of the majority of complaints before any investigation, or any neutral or meaningful investigation, are patterns that repeat across numerous geographies and jurisdictions.
We will continue to document them — in Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. On this note, we welcome any pet owner to submit their concerns and cases to us.
The Harry Kelly Case Study, documenting the abuse, torture, and illegal conversion of a private pet for a teaching institution’s “educational” purposes and profit, is documented here, and in considerably greater detail, here.
