Treasury Laws Amendment (Genetic Testing Protections in Life Insurance and Other Measures) Bill 2025
Mr JOYCE (New England) (17:24): One of the biggest issues in genetic testing is that, under an insurance process, it allows the insurer to remove any sense of risk. You don't have the risk if you remove all the high-risk components. The whole purpose of insurance is to have a pool of people in which you include low risk and high risk for the general betterment that those of a higher risk have a form of cover.
If we allow genetic testing in and to go unchecked, then any person who has latency towards cancer, latency towards respiratory disease or heart attacks will of course be treated just like a person who is a smoker. They'll say, 'I don't really have an interest in insuring you, because I make more money out of this group.' I want to bring attention to something else that's in regard to genetic testing and the protections in life insurance.
I'll talk about genetic testing and protection in life. What we have—and we've seen more of, as I refer to a study by Edith Cowan University—is people, especially with non-invasive prenatal testing, who are testing for the sex of a child below 10 weeks. We've had an unreasonable increase—the general ratio is about 105 boys to 100 girls.
That's generally where it is. But what we're seeing in some sections is 134 boys to 100 girls, as people have a preference to move towards the abortion of girls so that— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Young ): Order! I call the minister.
Dr Leigh: The honourable member is straying well beyond the bill. I would ask you to ask him to return his comments to the legislation before the House, not opining on every matter under the sun. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have been listening closely to the member.
I'm going to see where this leads. He is specifically talking about medical issues, and we are talking about health insurance here. I'm happy to let the member proceed, but I'll watch him, and, if he gets off course, I'll redirect him.
Mr JOYCE: I always understand the sensitivities that I raise. It's actually a United Nations issue. They're trying to deal with this.
Even at the United Nations level, they see this as a serious problem. The last report from the United Nations said that we're down 200 million girls. I thought that might have rung a bell somewhere.
I can understand if that's not a concern for the honourable member opposite, but it is to the United Nations. The reason is the capacity for people to actually utilise this and for insurance to cover this, even in regards to how it works vis-a-vis Medicare. It is incredibly pertinent as to what is happening in regards to genetic testing and testing for issues that sway away from the natural predisposition of the balance of traits.
If you test and find that someone has a prevalence to cancer and therefore remove them as somebody you wish to cover, then you are not doing the appropriate thing in covering risk. If you find people who have a heart disease and remove them from the people you ensure, then the predisposition sways what the purpose of insurance is. Likewise, if you use genetic testing—and it is genetic testing—to determine the sex, especially in non-invasive prenatal testing, you're changing the natural dynamic which is completely at odds with what people are trying to do with the equality of the sexes.
You're changing it in the most profound way. This is something that should be part of the scope. If we want to comply with where the United Nations is heading with this, then we have to be brave enough to acknowledge this.
We are seeing now, even in Australia that what they call the sex ratio for births, in some demographics in Australia, has gone to 1.39 when it should be around 1.05. If we concur with this, then we concur with the belief that girls are not as important as boys, and I hope that that wouldn't be the case. I put it to the honourable member opposite—if he disagrees with that, he's welcome to stand and say so.
This study by Edith Cowan University has brought once more to light the whole gamut of this new world we're in with genetic testing. Genetic testing has to have some ring-roads put around it. If it doesn't, it will become incredibly Orwellian in terms of the type of world that we want to create.
Of course, the attributes being tested for don't stop with people's predisposition for wanting male children, because that's where it generally moves towards—male. It also comes to other attributes that people wish to select for, and they can do it by genetic testing. They can do it for eye colour.
They can do it for height. They can do it for whether a person has the propensity to become obese. All these things become part of this rather dark and perverse new form of eugenics in trying to create a new form of humankind—one that fits our ideal model for what we believe to be the perfect human being.
It's completely wrong. It's a very bad thing. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Georganas ): Order!
The member for New England will resume his seat. A point of order? Dr Leigh: It's on relevance.
We are in the realm of Dennis Denuto's 'vibe of the thing'. The member for New England is not addressing the question of genetic testing, discrimination and life insurance. He's seen the words 'genetic testing'— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am listening carefully.
I ask the member to resume his seat. The member for New England has the call, and I ask him to stay relevant. Mr JOYCE: Thank you very much.
On relevance, he seemed very upset about genetic testing. This is genetic testing. He then said the word 'discrimination'.
I couldn't be more profoundly relevant to the issue of discrimination, in its most exact form, than with precisely what I'm talking about. I don't know whether the member finds it offensive or what the issue is, but you can't stand up and say it's got nothing to do with genetic testing, when it absolutely has, and it's got nothing to do with discrimination, when it is most profoundly attached to discrimination.
And to belittle it by making a reference to Dennis Denuto—that is profoundly insulting and, I thought, quite below you, but anyway. In closing, it is incredibly important, when we see this, that we bring it before the chamber and before the Australian people. The Australian people understand that, as we've seen here in a classic example, they will immediately try to shut you down.
They will immediately try to put a shackle on this discussion because it doesn't suit their views of what they want. On this, I will side with the United Nations. He thinks it's some right-wing conspiracy.
I've been reading this report, and it's hardly a right-wing conspiracy; it's a complete expression of a concern that the world has, which we are now also seeing in Australia. If the member believes that it's not an issue that 200 million girls are just not there because of people's preference for boys over girls, then I don't know when he became so lost in his own compass.