Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Change rarely begins in this place. It often starts with the relentless efforts of the dedicated few who champion important causes. Today I rise to recognise one such leader of change. Dr Jane Tiller from Monash University has been awarded Research Australia's Health and Medical Research Advocacy Award for 2024. This prestigious honour celebrates her outstanding work advocating for Australia's protection against genetic discrimination in life insurance through genetic testing.

Genetic testing saves so many lives by helping to prevent, diagnose and treat heritable conditions and cancers. Yet many have avoided testing, fearing that insurers will utilise that data in order to deny coverage or increase premiums. Thanks to Dr Tiller's tireless years of advocacy, in September of this year this parliament banned the use of adverse predictive genetic tests in life insurance underwriting.

From a personal perspective, I want to say to all our medical researchers that lock themselves away in laboratories until the wee hours of the morning, devoting their lives to the pursuit of outcomes for their division of science: at the end of that, there are some very real humans who are eternally grateful for your work. Well done to all our medical researchers, and well done to Dr Jane Tiller.