Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3395 ..

Discrimination Act proposed in clause 4 of the bill as they, in the government’s opinion, will not provide any more protection than is currently made available by the provisions in the act.

In early 2003 the Discrimination Act was amended to attend to the issues of discrimination on the basis of genetic information. In 2003 the Discrimination Amendment Act expanded the meaning of “impairment” to include an impairment that a person has or is thought to have, an impairment that a person had in the past or is thought to have had in the past, and an impairment that a person will have in the future, or may have in the future. In this way the Discrimination Act gives broader protection from discrimination based on past, present or future impairment.

That approach is consistent with the anti-discrimination legislation of Tasmania, of New South Wales and of the Commonwealth. All have an expanded definition of disability that includes disabilities that may exist in the future. Therefore, the government does not support clause 7 of the bill, which proposes to add a new section 28 (2) to section 28 of the Discrimination Act because fundamentally it is inconsistent with the Commonwealth legislation, and as a result of that inconsistency is almost certainly ineffective.

Clause 7 of the bill proposes to add a new section 28 (2) to section 28 of the Discrimination Act. Section 28 of the act relates to insurance and allows a person to discriminate against another person in relation to the terms of an annuity or insurance policy if the discrimination is reasonable in the circumstances having regard to any actuarial or statistical data. However, the new section 28 (2) of the bill provides that section 28 does not apply to the use of predictive genetic information to discriminate against a person in relation to the terms of an annuity or insurance policy. Specifically, with the introduction of this new part, insurers and insurance agents would not be able to use predictive genetic information when providing an annuity or insurance policy to clients.

The government also does not support clause 9 of the bill, which proposes to add a new section 29 (1) (a) to section 29 of the Discrimination Act. Section 29 of the act relates to superannuation and allows a person to discriminate against another person in relation to the terms or conditions of a superannuation or provident fund scheme if the discrimination is due to a standard enforced under the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 of the Commonwealth, is for the purpose of complying with, avoiding a penalty or obtaining a benefit under an act of the Commonwealth, or based on actuarial, statistical or other reasonable data. The government also questions the effectiveness of proposed sections 28 (2) and 29 (1) (a), as they are contrary to section 46 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 of the Commonwealth. Because they are inconsistent with the Commonwealth legislation it is highly doubtful that they would have any effect.

Finally, the government does not support part 2B of the bill. This part proposes amendments to the Crimes Act through insertion of the offence of genetic testing without consent and of unlawfully obtaining genetic testing consent. Under these provisions, a person commits an offence if he or she takes a sample from someone for the purpose of genetic testing, submits a sample from someone for the purpose of genetic testing, or conducts genetic testing on a sample from someone and there was no consent to the

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .