People who bite or otherwise expose NSW frontline workers to a risk of disease could be subject to mandatory testing for blood-borne viruses under proposed new laws.
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Legislation to be introduced to state parliament next year is designed to provide peace of mind for police, paramedics and other frontline workers who are attacked while working.
Those who are bitten are currently forced to wait about six months to learn if they have been exposed to blood-borne viruses such as HIV, hepatitis B or C through an assault.
Police and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott said the scheme was both a mental health and medical policy.
Under the proposed laws, if a frontline worker is exposed to the risk of a virus through another person's deliberate act, a senior officer from their agency will determine whether that person should undergo testing.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said the subject of a testing order would have 48 hours to appeal to the chief health officer.
"This will be an expeditious process - we don't want it tied up in red tape, we don't want it tied up in a lengthy court process," Mr Speakman told reporters on Wednesday in Sydney.
"We want peace of mind and a swift answer for our frontline workers."
However, Independent MP Alex Greenwich said the scheme risked targeting and ostracising the LGBTI community.
"This proposal jeopardises not only our relationship with law enforcement, but decades of progress in destigmatising the LGBTI community and winning equality in the eyes of the law," the Sydney MP said in a statement.
HIV organisation ACON also spoke out, saying mandatory testing was ineffective in reducing risk or harm, and failed to stand up to medical scrutiny.
"We support protecting the health, wellbeing and safety of frontline emergency service personnel," ACON chief executive Nicolas Parkhill said in a statement.
"However, putting in place legislation that has no evidence base and relies on outdated and stigmatising notions of disease transmission risk, is alarming and retrograde."
Mr Speakman said anyone who refused to comply with a testing order would face the prospect of a maximum of 12 months imprisonment, an $11,000 fine or both.
He said a parent, guardian or local court would approve testing orders if the individual was younger than 16 or subject to a guardianship order.
The scheme would be available to a range of the state's frontline workers, including those from NSW Police, Corrective Services NSW, Youth Justice NSW, Fire and Rescue NSW and St John Ambulance.
Australian Associated Press
