Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025 is incredibly important legislation. It is a baseline test for whether or not we want an Australia that is free from discrimination based on people's life circumstances and, because we have life insurance policies, whether they make judgement calls about people based on their genetic make-up.

It's actually quite a straightforward bill in one sense. The oddity is: why did it take this long? This is not a new issue. It is not one that has not been raised in parliament before. It is not one that has not been raised as a consequence of the design of financial products. We have known for a long time that there has been a question about genetic testing and the impact it has on people's capacity to access life insurance policies. In fact, the industry has moved forward on this issue. The parliament has regularly discussed this issue. There has only been one group who have been neanderthalic in their response, and it has, of course, been the current Labor government. So we support this legislation, because, finally, they are doing something. Finally, we are actually getting action, after four years, to stop medical testing being a pathway to deny access to life insurance.

When you think about it, so many Australians, not knowing what the future holds—and none of us know what tomorrow holds, let alone today—take out life insurance policies because they simply want to be in a position to be able to support their families, beyond their current life, if, unfortunately, the worst happens, particularly with themselves and their families. Of course, while every family is different and every family has a different economic make-up, life insurance policies heavily go towards those who are principal financial contributors to the household to make sure that people have confidence in the future. But, by providing a pathway for genetic testing for life insurance, what you can end up with is people being excluded from being able to access a pool of insurance to give them protection—and that is the whole point of insurance. Insurance is a pool to mitigate risk. Risk can range from people's genetic make-up to the circumstances they face, the workplaces they work in and, of course, other factors that put or pose risks to their overall wellbeing. So it is a simple expectation that life insurance operates in a non-discriminatory way, when we know full well that people face different circumstances within their lives—and they're specifically seeking insurance to protect things like their livelihood, their income and their capacity to support their family in light of that.

So why did it take this government so long to be able to progress it? In 2019, when we were in government, we started the whole process to have this conversation. What it meant was that, by the time we got to the 2022 election, there was broad agreement across the sector, from the life insurance industry themselves. And, in September 2024, the old—remember him, the Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones? I'm not sure I'm going to say that I'm going to miss him, but let's put that to one side. I think he's off at the OECD these days. I don't know what he's doing there; you can't run interference for industry super funds there. The then assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, announced, to much fanfare—you know when they do that, when Labor get up and they announce with trumpets and songs and their own people what a wonderful job they're going to do?—that they were going to, finally, ban genetic testing.

Well, September 2024 is a fair way from where we are now, presently. But they did nothing, as a consequence. That announcement was widely welcomed and raised real expectations among Australians and the medical community—but never let the opportunity to stall, to do nothing, pass this government, which marks its success not on what it achieves for the Australian people. This government marks its success by the number of days bums sit on those seats over there, the number of days that the Prime Minister can do things like humiliate the Treasurer of the country, the extent to which the Prime Minister can occupy C1 but not actually deliver for the Australian people. That is not a good pathway for governing this country. But we are all left waiting while the Minister for Energy and Climate Change lets the country run out of oil, the Treasurer pours debt-petrol on the inflation fire, and as for the Prime Minister—well, when somebody can tell me what he's doing, I'd love to hear it.

Australians have been left waiting with the consequences of this bill while we have sat here patiently waiting for change. Now we have legislation delivered from on high, and now we have a pathway to vote for it. And what happened? It was a shock. The coalition said: 'Yes, actually we believe in this. What's taken you so long?' The cute observations of the assistant minister on the other side of the chamber are particularly entertaining.

I'm sorry, are you a minister? I don't know. You never quite know where everybody is these days. The minister on the other side of the table has been interjecting, 'What took you so long?' I'm not sure if you noticed, Minister, but you're sitting on that side of the table. You're in government. I'm quite happy if you want to forgo that. But the reality is you did not—

See this speech in context