Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Genetic testing saves lives. More participation in genetic testing means better prevention, earlier treatment, stronger health outcomes and advances in scientific knowledge that benefit all Australians. But, for too long, many Australians have been discouraged from seeking genetic testing due to a fear of being penalised by insurers, and that is what we're fixing with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025. We are changing the law to put the health of Australians first, banning life insurers from using someone's adverse genetic test results—or information in their DNA highlighting a potential risk—to determine whether or not they get cover or to set the terms of that insurance cover. This ban has been carefully designed, ensuring that individuals can still volunteer their test results, with written consent if it's of benefit to them, and insurers can still use symptoms, diagnoses and family history to ensure policies remain properly risk rated—an essential feature of insurance.

Genetic testing saves lives through the prevention of disease in very high risk people, and there are more of them than most people realise. The DNA screen study at Monash University tested 10,000 Australians from ages 18 to 40 for high genetic risk of preventable cancer and heart disease, finding that one in 50, two per cent, at high risk. Those people were able to access preventive measures, such as surgery, surveillance and medication. Young Australians want preventive genetic information. The DNA screen study was extremely popular, with tens of thousands of young people registering their interest in participating in the study. In my electorate of Deakin, at least 66 young people participated in DNA Screen. One of those people was found to be at a high genetic risk and has now been able to access preventive health care.

Unfortunately, there were many people who signed up for the DNA screen who decided not to participate because of genetic discrimination in life insurance. For decades, this has been an impossible decision for many Australians, who have had to choose between genetic testing that could save their lives and the potential financial implications for life insurance. I think of that one person in Deakin, who now has access to preventive health care, and how many more people would be accessing potentially life-saving health care if they didn't have to worry about the impacts to the cost of their life insurance. This bill will end that fear and enable Australians to make decisions about genetic testing and genetic research without worrying about their life insurance. This legislation will address the most significant barrier to testing for Australians and pave the way for greater investment into preventive genomic screening.

It's pretty common for politicians and policy wonks to talk about how much more effective we are when we invest to prevent a problem from occurring in the first place than when we try to patch things up afterwards. Often this is because, dollar for dollar, we get much more value from early intervention. With the bill before us today, we're not just saving money by reducing the need for complex and expensive treatments; we're saving lives. With the bill before us today, our government is implementing a clear policy. Life insurers will no longer be able to use an individual's adverse genetic testing results to determine whether they can get cover or to set the terms of that cover.

I want to recognise the efforts of my friend the Assistant Treasurer in this space. Getting to this point, where we have a bill with broad support, took a lot of effort, conversations and consultation. Those efforts have led us to this point and I believe they will lead to longer, happier, more fulfilling lives for many Australians. This bill ensures our anti-discrimination laws keep pace with modern science. We are aligning the Insurance Contracts Act and the Disability Discrimination Act so that Australians have certainty and protection, not fear and confusion, when making decisions about their health.

Australians should not have to choose between their health and their ability to access affordable life insurance. Under the current legal framework, vulnerable Australians have been delaying or avoiding genetic testing because they're worried about being penalised by insurers. We're fixing that. Treasury's analysis is clear. People are holding back from essential testing, or even from participating in medical research, because of the actions of life insurance companies. That means that not only are the current laws discouraging vulnerable people from seeking information about their own health; they're holding back advances in medical knowledge and technology that could help thousands, or even millions, of people. That is not good enough and that is why the government is stepping in to make sure the system works for people, not against them.

Banning life insurers using someone's adverse genetic test results to determine whether they can get coverage restores certainty. It tells Australians, especially those at higher risk of heritable conditions, that their decision to undertake genetic testing will not jeopardise their access to life insurance or force them into more expensive or restrictive policies. These reforms will support greater uptake of genetic testing and participation in medical research. That means better prevention, earlier treatment, stronger public health outcomes and advances in scientific knowledge that benefit all Australians.

Importantly, this ban has teeth. This reform establishes civil and criminal penalties and places enforcement authority with ASIC, which ensures these new protections are backed by strong oversight. Vulnerable Australians deserve a system that supports their health decisions, not one that punishes them. I'm proud that we are moving our system in that direction with this bill.

I'll go through the details of schedule 1 of the bill, which implements the government's decision to ban life insurers from using information about an individual's genetic testing results to inform the offer of life insurance cover or the terms and conditions of the cover that is offered. The ban makes amendments to the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 to implement the ban and related amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 to align Australia's antidiscrimination laws with the ban, just ensuring all the different bits of legislation work together.

Genetic testing can help save lives, supporting medical practitioners to prevent, treat and monitor a range of cancers, cancer predisposition syndromes and other heritable conditions. Medical research that involves genetic testing contributes to scientific advancement, which can lead to significant individual and public health benefits, such as identifying new risk factors for future illness and testing new therapies for diseases.

Treasury analysis shows the current life insurance framework has caused individuals to not undergo or to delay genetic testing, including participating in clinical research­, due to concerns that this may impact the ability to afford life insurance. That means the full benefits of genetic testing—saving lives and improving the quality of life for individuals and advancing medical knowledge and technology—are not being realised. This ban will lead to an increase in genetic testing and therefore extensive individual, public health and scientific benefits.

As I flagged earlier, the ban will not prevent individuals from volunteering genetic testing results with written consent and the use of these volunteered results in underwriting where this would not adversely impact the insurance offer or policy terms. The ban will not limit the existing ability of life insurers to access and use certain information for underwriting life insurance, including existing symptoms, diagnoses of diseases and obviously the individual's family history—again, very standard in insurance. This is necessary to ensure that life insurance can continue to be properly risk rated and underwritten, whilst still achieving the aim of providing protection over genetic testing results.

While I wanted to focus my remarks today on the banning of genetic testing and life insurance, as other speakers have done, I think it would be remiss of me not to speak briefly about the other components of this important bill. Schedule 2 of this bill removes unnecessary barriers for well regulated overseas financial firms operating here in Australia. It recognises that, if a company is already bound by laws overseas that are equivalent to ours in Australia, there really is no need to duplicate processes unnecessarily when we know those outcomes can already be achieved. It's focused on maintaining protections around overseas financial products where they're needed most—everyday consumers—while providing more flexibility where those using the services are sophisticated institutions like superannuation funds, banks and large corporations and at the same time making sure that our system continues to provide robust protection for individual consumers. It's there to facilitate more competition. It's there to ensure that the financial regulation is more efficient, more competitive and better connected globally to enable Australians to have a diverse array of investments and to attract investment here in Australia—so, many benefits economically.

Schedule 3 of the bill modernises the legislative framework around multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund, reducing the administrative and legislative burden of Australia's commitments. It effectively standardises and streamlines these arrangements—clearer rules for funding, contributions and future commitments—providing one clean modern framework instead of a messy patchwork like what we're seeing right now. The law around the funding of these institutions is incredibly complex, fragmented and really outdated, so these are very important reforms in schedule 3 as well. They're consistent with our support for international institutions and the G20's call for multilateral development banks to develop and support innovative financial instruments. It also includes provisions standardising appropriations, effectively meaning the way they are spent. It means that if money is required, it can be spent as long as it meets certain criteria, and those are then published in an instrument which comes to the parliament providing oversight. Effectively, it is a disallowable instrument to spend money, which the parliament can come in and debate, block or whatever it wants to do. But it does mean that the regular functioning of government can continue in a clear, simple and streamlined way consistent with the obligations we as a country have already entered.

Schedule 4 of the bill implements the government's commitment to no longer proceed with stage 2 of the registration process for financial advisers established by the Better Advice Act. That might sound very bland and very unexciting, which is understandable. Effectively, a few years ago, following the royal commission into banks, there was legislation brought in by the Morrison government which created a two-step registration process for financial advisers: stage 1, which already requires financial advisers to be registered with ASIC via their Australian Financial Services licensee—in other words, their employer registers them together; and stage 2, which was in the bill to be implemented later, also required individual advisers to register themselves individually. The reason given for that at the time was so that they could be reminded of the importance of their legal obligations, but it's now essentially a political consensus that that just adds another layer of regulation without achieving any public policy goal. This bill doesn't abolish adviser registration in any way. What it does is keep stage 1 while abolishing stage 2. All advisers are still registered officially. It just means there isn't now two registrations that individual advisers have to go through. So that is another efficiency and really just cutting red tape.

In conclusion, all parts of this bill are important, but, most importantly, we're removing the barrier for vulnerable Australians seeking more information about their own health. This is good for those individuals, good for our healthcare system and good for our society. I commend this bill to the House.

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