Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Genetic testing can help save lives, supporting medical practitioners to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor a range of cancers, cancer predisposition syndromes and other heritable conditions.

This bill amends the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 to ban life insurers from taking into account information about an individual's genetic testing to inform the offer of life insurance cover, or the terms and conditions of the cover that is offered.

The Albanese government recognises the importance of genetic and genomic health technologies. We support the use of genetic tests increasingly becoming a part of our preventive healthcare system. Although genetic testing uptake is on the rise, a recent genetic testing study from Monash University shows that more than half of participants that discontinued their involvement in the study did so because of concerns around accessing affordable insurance.

One participant in this study was Ben. Ben didn't have any significant family history of cancer, but he took part in a genetic testing study. The results showed he carries a PALB2 variant, which raises the risk of prostate and breast cancer in men. This information was important not only for him but also for his female relatives, who now know they face higher risks of breast and ovarian cancer and have begun getting tested. Learning about these elevated risks has motivated Ben to adopt risk-reducing strategies.

Genetic tests help save lives. Australians should not be discouraged from undertaking genetic testing out of fear that it may impact their ability to get life insurance.

By putting this ban in place, we will remove this barrier, so more Australians will access genetic testing and, in turn, its full benefits for patients, public health and medical research can be delivered.

I appreciate the industry and stakeholder consultation process that has occurred to ensure this legislation is achieves its intended purpose.

This schedule creates new strict liability and civil penalty provisions for breaches of the ban and gives the Australian Securities and Investments Commission regulatory responsibility for monitoring and enforcing the ban.

Schedule 2 to the bill provides licensing relief to facilitate access by Australian professional and wholesale investors to global investment opportunities so that they can diversify their financial holdings.

This improves outcomes for millions of Australians as these services are commonly used by superannuation funds and institutional investors, among other financial firms.

This relief has generally been provided by way of an ASIC instrument. The legislation and this schedule in the bill will elevate the relief to primary law and improve oversight for the regulator.

This gives certainty to the industry that financial institutions and eligible investors can access the financial products and services offered by foreign financial service providers.

Schedule 3 to the bill streamlines and modernises Australia's legislative framework for multilateral development banks and the IMF, reducing both administrative and legislative burden.

These banks are rapidly evolving their financing models. A more flexible framework will ensure Australia does not fall behind in our ability to participate in future financing arrangements with these institutions.

These changes will importantly allow Australia to formalise agreements announced as part of the 2024-25 MYEFO with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and are consistent with Australia's support for rules-based multilateral institutions.

Schedule 4 to the bill repeals schedule 2 of the Financial Sector Reform (Hayne Royal Commission Response—Better Advice) Act 2021 and gives effect to the government's decision to no longer proceed with stage 2 of the registration process for financial advisers. This would have otherwise required individual financial advisers to register themselves annually with ASIC from 1 July 2026.

This maintains the current system which requires Australian financial services licensees to apply to ASIC to register their authorised financial advisers and is consistent with the objective of removing unnecessary regulatory burden for individual advisers. Further, the operation of stage 1 registration has proven sufficient to meet the policy objectives of a functioning and effective disciplinary system.

The Legislative and Governance Forum for Corporations was notified about the amendments as required under the Corporations Agreement 2002.

Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum.

Debate adjourned.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very proud to sit here today and hear this introduced. I congratulate the minister.