David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Australia, you cannot be discriminated against based on your race, your gender, your sexual orientation or your disability. That would be against the law. However, the law explicitly permits life insurers to discriminate against people based on their DNA. There are many reasons we should be concerned about this. But what has me worried is the impact it is having on people as they are deciding whether or not to get potentially lifesaving genetic testing.

The decision on whether to have a genetic test is a deeply personal one. If you're looking at testing, it's probably because you have a loved one who has been diagnosed with cancer; breast cancer is the most well-known example. For those with a history of breast cancer, a clinician may recommend testing for a BRCA gene mutation. When this happens, it should be a matter for you and you alone. But, currently, you also have to consider the very real possibility that you may never be able to get life insurance coverage. For many people, this is enough to stop them from going ahead with the test. And that is a tragedy.

If we don't want to lose the benefits that genetic testing could bring to our communities and our families, then we need to ban life insurers from collecting this information—no loopholes, no exemptions, a complete ban that provides certainty for people that their DNA can never, ever be used against them. We've seen this happen in Canada. There's an opportunity for the Labor government to make this change and give people certainty that, when they get a DNA test, that cannot be used against them by life insurers.