Most coronial recommendations in Australia have no published response: a national analysis of findings and agency responses

Only 29.2% of Australian coronial findings containing recommendations (1,309 of 4,480) had a published agency response, with rates ranging from 58.6% in Western Australia to 5.8% in Tasmania.

• Why it matters: Coroner recommendations prevent deaths only when someone acts, yet it is unclear how often agencies publicly respond, limiting follow-up on implementation.
• What they did: In a cross-sectional national analysis of all findings and agency responses in the AustLII Coronial Law Library across eight jurisdictions (enumerated February 2026), responses were linked and classified using a validated large language model (kappa 0.81).
• The result: Among 1,541 findings with a classifiable response, 85.4% (1,316) accepted the recommendations, and mentions of a psychiatric unit (adjusted OR 2.02) or a prison (1.78) were linked to accepting responses.

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