The NSW Ombudsman’s report monitoring the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021 (MDT Act), was tabled in Parliament today. The NSW Ombudsman has a statutory role to monitor the administration of the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021, providing for mandatory blood testing of a person whose bodily fluids have come into contact with those of a public sector worker in a work context.
Central to the development of the report was the inclusion of perspectives from government agencies and frontline workers, offering crucial information about the MDT scheme in practice.
Building on these insights and our ongoing monitoring, the NSW Ombudsman has recommended that the Government consider whether the MDT Act should be continued.
NSW Ombudsman Paul Miller stated, “Our aim with the report is that it provides the platform for a clear-minded and evidence-based evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme”.
“The MDT Act tries to balance important competing policy considerations,” said Mr Miller. “The scheme aims to enable testing to be undertaken very quickly, so that the test results might allay the stress and anxiety the worker may be facing, or so that those results can be taken into account in a worker’s medical treatment. At the same time, the Act aims, as it must, to provide protections and procedural fairness to those being tested. It may be that these competing policy concerns are irreconcilable.”
“We did not observe clear and measurable benefits of the MDT scheme for workers. Given that lack of clarity, it is questionable whether the significant and complex legislative and administrative burden of the MDT scheme is warranted for such a small number of exposures,” said Mr Miller.
The report also recommends that if the Government decides the MDT Act is to be continued, the Act provides that Mandatory Disease Testing Orders can only be made by the court on application of the worker’s senior officer.
The NSW Ombudsman has also made a series of 60 recommendations, including for amendments to the MDT Act to address problems with decision-making and ineffective procedural fairness mechanisms identified when monitoring the scheme.
The NSW Ombudsman acknowledges and thanks those workers, other individuals, and organisations who contributed to the report by sharing their experience and expertise.
The Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021 (MDT Act) report is available here.
Read the full media release.
Watch NSW Ombudsman, Paul Miller discuss the report.
