Four years ago, mandatory disease testing laws were introduced to allow frontline police, corrections and ambulance workers to get an order to force a person to have a blood test if that person spat on the worker. I opposed the laws at the time because it was clear that they would target vulnerable people, create stigma and misinformation about bloodborne diseases like HIV and do nothing to protect frontline workers; the Ombudsman's recent review of the laws vindicated my concerns.

The Ombudsman found that not only did the laws fail to change frontline workers’ treatment approaches or help with their wellbeing, they added to stress and misunderstanding about the risks. Saliva represents a very low transmission risk for bloodborne diseases and blood testing a third party provides limited information about transmission because there is a lag before diseases show up in tests. The Ombudsman found that if the third party was Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, they were more likely to be ordered to undergo a test than if the third party was not.

Frontline workers are vital to keeping the community safe, but they are no better off with these laws and in Parliament I called for their urgent repeal.

My speech > HERE.