SA Parliament will today debate laws to increase existing powers of police to force people to test for HIV and other blood-borne diseases if they spit at or bite frontline emergency service workers.
These laws ignore expert medical advice and national health strategy, place frontline emergency service workers at risk and further stigmatise people living with HIV and other blood-borne diseases.
SA Rainbow Advocacy Alliance hold significant concerns regarding the Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) (Blood Testing) Amendment Bill 2024 expected to be debated in the Legislative Council today Tuesday 4 March 2025.
The Bill is an election commitment of the Labor Government that seeks to increase existing powers of police to mandate people who spit at or bite frontline emergency service workers to test for HIV and other blood-borne diseases.
Assaulting police officers or emergency workers is unacceptable. All frontline workers, including frontline emergency services workers, have the right to carry out their duties safely, free of harassment and violence.
We are concerned that in its current form, the Bill ignores expert medical consensus, places police and emergency service workers at greater risk and further stigmatises people living with HIV and other blood-borne diseases, at odds with national strategy to eliminate HIV.
Expert medical consensus is that the risk of transmission from biting or spitting is negligible to none. If a person with HIV is on treatment and has a sustained, undetectable HIV viral load they cannot transmit HIV to other people.
Mandating blood testing where there is negligible to no risk of transmission gives workers a false perception that they are at risk, unnecessarily increasing stress and anxiety.
In the unlikely event of exposure, current Australian National Guidelines on Occupational Exposure to HIV recommend workers seek medical treatment and counselling before potentially commencing an initial course of post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) within 72 hours of potential exposure to reduce the risk of transmission.
Enabling police to mandate blood testing for up to 6 months after exposure without clinical consideration of medical necessity is likely to have limited therapeutic effectiveness. Instead of giving workers “peace of mind”, mandatory testing conversely gives workers a false sense of security and disincentivises seeking treatment, increasing risk of transmission.
The Australian Government’s Ninth National HIV Strategy 2024-2030 and National HIV Taskforce Report explicitly criticise mandatory disease testing laws as “unscientific… stigmatise HIV and place Australia out of step with international practices”. The Strategy commits to “engage with state and territory partners to discuss the laws that indirectly perpetuate stigma and are incongruent with Australia’s endorsement of the science of U=U.”
Instead the State Labor Government has elected to expand existing police powers under mandatory blood testing laws, at odds with national health strategy.
We urge all members of Parliament to amend the Bill to ensure it meets its intended purpose of improving the safety of emergency services workers, while mitigating the risks of unintended consequences.
For further information we encourage you to read the National Association of People Living with HIV (NAPWHA) 2019 report, The System is Broken: Audit of Australia’s Mandatory Disease Testing Laws.
Support
If you need to talk to someone or are seeking mental health support or advice, people and services are available:
- Thorne Harbour Health SA offer specialist mental health support for LGBTIQA+ people aged 16 and over. Call (08) 7078 4128.
People in South Australia living with HIV can access support from:
- South Australian HIV PEP hotline for people who believe they may have been exposed to HIV. Call 1800 022 226.
- SAMESH, a partnership between SHINE SA and Thorne Harbour Health that provides support, education and training about Sexual Health and HIV for men who have sex with men and people living with HIV. www.samesh.org.au
- Positive Life SA, a community of people living with HIV. www.positivelifesa.org.au