Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Genetic testing saves lives. It supports medical practitioners to prevent, to diagnose, to treat and to monitor a range of cancers, cancer predisposition syndromes and other heritable conditions. Medical practice is moving forward in leaps and bounds. We know a lot more than we did a hundred years ago, we know a lot more than we did 10 years ago, and we know a lot more than we did one year ago. Genetic testing is one of the areas where this is the most prominent and, indeed, the most impactful. But, right now, too many Australians are delaying or avoiding genetic testing that could save their lives, not because their doctor hasn't recommended it but because they're afraid their life insurer could use the results against them. And that's what's core to this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025. This bill is about health. This bill is about making sure that Australians can be diagnosed as early as possible and that we remove every barrier we can to allow that to be a reality. Australians should never have to choose between their health and their ability to access affordable life insurance, and, with this bill, they won't have to.

This bill delivers four core outcomes. Firstly, it bans life insurers from using adverse genetic test results in their underwriting decisions. Next, it reduces licensing exemptions for certain foreign financial services providers. Thirdly, it modernises Australia's legislative framework for multilateral development banks. And, finally, it repeals the stage 2 financial adviser registration requirement.

Schedule 1 of this bill bans life insurers from using those adverse genetic test results in those underwriting decisions. From the date of commencement, an insurer will not be able to use your genetic test results to decide whether to offer you cover or to set the terms of that cover. This has a big impact.

This is a measure that is carefully designed. Individuals can still choose to volunteer their test results, with written consent, where it benefits them, and insurers can still use information about clinical diagnoses, symptoms and family medical history. That distinction matters because life insurance needs to be properly risk rated. This bill removes the chilling effect that genetic testing results have had on people's willingness to seek potentially life-saving information. The objective is straightforward: to provide certainty to individuals that undertaking genetic testing will not impact their ability to obtain life insurance cover or the terms and conditions of that cover.

For too long, the industry relied on a voluntary moratorium. In June 2023, Monash University published the final report from the A-GLIMMER study—the Australian genetics and life insurance moratorium: monitoring the effectiveness and response. The report was unequivocal: the moratorium was inadequate to address and prevent genetic discrimination in life insurance. It recommended a legislative model of prohibition, and that is exactly what this bill does and delivers. The ban makes amendments to the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 and related amendments to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, aligning our antidiscrimination laws with the ban. It also creates civil penalties of up to $1.65 million and criminal offences for non-compliance enforced by ASIC. These are not token penalties; they are a clear signal that the government is serious about this change. If someone seeks to circumvent them, they will feel the full force of penalties and the law. To make sure these protections keep pace with advances in medical science, the bill requires five-yearly reviews of the operation of the provisions to be tabled in parliament.

This ban is underpinned by extensive stakeholder engagement and consultation. The government consulted closely with genetics research organisations, patient advocates, the life insurance industry and the medical community throughout the design of the measure and draft legislation. This is a reform that the community has asked for, that the evidence has supported and that the industry has accepted.

Schedule 2 of the bill introduces licensing exemptions for certain foreign financial service providers who operate in Australia's wholesale and professional investor markets. Currently, foreign financial services providers must hold an Australian financial services licence or rely on temporary relief instruments issued by ASIC. This bill elevates those arrangements to primary law, giving industry certainty and improving regulatory oversight—oversight that we know is needed in this space. There are three carefully targeted exemptions: the comparable regulator exemption, the professional investor exemption and the market maker exemption. They benefit Australian superannuation funds, institutional investors and businesses by giving them access to a greater range of international investments, specialised global financial advice and new sources of financing.

The bill also introduces a fast-track licensing pathway for foreign financial services providers already regulated by comparable overseas regimes. This removes the need to go through the full fit-and-proper person assessment when applying for an Australian licence to service wholesale clients, and it reduces duplication without compromising market integrity. As the minister has stated, this improves outcomes for millions of Australians, as these services are commonly used by superannuation funds and institutional investors, among other financial firms.

Schedule 3 modernises Australia's legislative framework for our participation in multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund. These amendments provide a more flexible and efficient appropriations framework, including provisions to support the government's commitments announced in the 2024-25 MYEFO process, and this covers the purchase of US$150 million in hybrid capital from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It also enables the purchase of US$200 million in guarantees through the Asian Development Bank's Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific. Multilateral development banks are rapidly evolving in their financing models in response to the G20's calls for more innovative instruments to address global development financing gaps, and, without a flexible legislative framework, Australia risks falling behind in its ability to participate in these arrangements.

Crucially, new financial obligations under this framework will remain subject to parliamentary scrutiny through disallowable legislative instruments. Transparency and oversight are maintained. What changes is that the legislative burden of routine, non-controversial transactions is reduced, freeing up Treasury officials to focus on substantive decisions, not administrative process.

Finally, schedule 4 repeals the stage 2 financial adviser registration requirement, which would have required individual advisers to register themselves annually with ASIC from 1 July 2026. Stage 1 registration, which already requires Australian financial services licensees to register their authorised advisers with ASIC, achieves the objective of a functioning and effective disciplinary system. The Financial Services and Credit Panel already has the authority to take necessary action against financial advisers where required, including suspending or cancelling registration. Stage 2 would result in added cost and administrative burden, including bespoke IT infrastructure, without meaningfully enhancing consumer protection. Not proceeding with it is the right call, and it's consistent with the government's broader commitment to reducing regulatory burden on advisers where that regulation does not enhance consumer protection. Deputy Speaker, you would have seen in this place and in the other place work being done to ensure that consumers are protected around a range of policy initiatives. This does not impact on that.

This bill brings together four very practical, well-considered reforms, but the one that will be felt most in communities like Moreton on Brisbane's south side is the ban on the use of adverse genetic test results in life insurance. As I said at the front of this speech, this part of the bill is fundamentally about health. It's about making sure that people understand and have no barriers to accessing testing that may help save their lives, and it's part of the commitment that this Labor government has made to health in so many different ways. Ordinarily, we talk about the commitment to affordable and accessible health care, whether that be through $25 caps on PBS medicines, through the creation of urgent care clinics or through making more bulk-billing in our local communities. But this is important too, because it means that people can have the confidence to go and get those tests. It means that their families know that their loved ones can go and get those tests and that it will not be a burden in terms of their life insurance.

For years, advocates have campaigned for this change. Researchers have documented the harm of the status quo. That's why the status quo is changing today. Families have had to make difficult decisions about their health because of the fear of financial penalties, and this government is delivering the protections people were promised and fixing a problem that those opposite ignored for a decade. Medical practice is moving forward in leaps and in bounds. The law must keep pace, and, with this bill, it will. I commend the bill to the House.

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