Earlier this year, the federal Labour government announced an investment of $43.9 million to fund ongoing efforts to eliminate transmission of HIV in Australia by 2030. Efforts to end viral hepatitis by this time are also underway, with new investment of $23.7 million over two years for hepatitis B and hepatitis C initiatives. This included the first dedicated investment in hepatitis B initiatives, with a new $7.8 million commitment over two years to develop and pilot hepatitis B projects to reduce transmission. However, it has been over thirty years since the last major national review of the legal landscape surrounding HIV, and the legal challenges faced by people living with hepatitis B have never before been the subject of dedicated national research.

‘We are not criminals, we are human beings’, Doreen Moraa Moracha, an HIV advocate from Kenya who was born with HIV, states. Speaking as part of a recording made at the 2023 ACT NOW Community Forum, held as part of the 12th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, in July 2023, Moracha echoed other voices calling for an end to outdated, differential treatment of people living with HIV.

Migrating to Australia can be a complex and intrusive experience. Reflecting on the administrative and legal process of migrating to Australia, Sergio*, a man in his thirties originally from South America and living with HIV, said:

I didn’t have to face any court, but I [did] have to prove that I wasn’t a bad person just because I have HIV […] I [had] to prove myself to someone else, who probably is not living with HIV, that I was not a bad person and I was a good citizen and I deserve to be here.

Over the past five years, there have been incremental changes to migration law and policy that have improved the prospects of people living with chronic hepatitis B becoming permanent residents in Australia. These changes include amendments to what is known as the ‘significant cost threshold’, which the Department of Home Affairs describes as a ‘cut-off amount’ at which it determine that ‘a visa applicant’s estimated health and community service costs’ are ‘significant’ and therefore do not meet the ‘Migration Health Requirement’. The time period used by the Department to estimate these costs is now 10 years for applicants who have an ongoing or permanent health condition with a ‘reasonably predictable course’. Previously, the time period was estimated against the applicant’s lifetime. For temporary visa applicants, the relevant period of time for the estimate of cost is the length of the particular visa subclass.   

Dr Anthea Vogl is an Associate Professor in the UTS Faculty of Law and a Chief Investigator in the Health+Law partnership. Her research adopts a critical and interdisciplinary approach to the regulation of migrants and non-citizens, with a particular focus on the social and legal categories of the ‘refugee’ and the ‘irregular migrant’. In her recently published book, Judging Refugees: Narrative and Oral Testimony in Refugee Status Determination (Cambridge University Press), Vogl examines the problematic reliance of decision-makers on refugee oral testimonies, which demand applicants present their personal life story in a neat and digestible Anglo-European form.

We recently spoke to our colleague Rhys Evans about his role at Health+Law, his previous experience as the Projects, Policy and Law Reform Solicitor at the HIV/AIDS Legal Centre, and his current work as a Research Assistant and PhD candidate.

The 28th of July is World Hepatitis Day, a global campaign to raise awareness and galvanise action towards eliminating viral hepatitis.

This week, the federal government unveiled a highly anticipated budget, including a major investment in the national response to BBVs and STIs. As part of an overall spend on health and aged care of $146.1 billion, $126.5 million over two years is indicated for the prevention, testing and treatment of BBVs and STIs.

At the start of 2024, Dr Dion Kagan joined the Health+Law team as a Research Associate. Dion has a research background in the humanities and health social sciences and prior to commencing with Health+Law, Dion completed a major project on policy, legal and lived experience aspects of hepatitis C with the Gender, Law and Drugs Program (GLaD), at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University. In addition to his work at GLaD, Dion has worked on a range of social research projects addressing HIV, sexuality, media, technology and public health, and is the author of a book called Positive Images: Gay Men and HIV/AIDS in the Culture of ‘Post Crisis’ (Bloomsbury, 2018). We spoke to Dion about his experience, current role, and what he is most looking forward to about working with Health+Law.

Hepatitis B Voices Australia is ‘the first hepatitis B community-led organisation in Australia that is wholly led by people affected by hepatitis B’. Amplifying the voices of the community and working to eliminate the impacts of hepatitis B are central to its mission. Having recently partnered with Health+Law to invite community participation in our national Legal Needs Study, Hepatitis B Voices Australia Co-founder, Director and Treasurer, Lien Tran spoke with us about the establishment of the organisation, the challenges it faces and why a project like Health+Law is long overdue.

Health+Law will soon launch the first ever national survey investigating legal needs and access to justice among people affected by hepatitis B and HIV in Australia. Part of our larger, national Legal Needs Study (LeNS), the survey aims to gather the diverse experiences of over 1,300 people living with these conditions. Alongside in-depth interviews with people in every state and territory, the survey is the latest part of Health+Law’s landmark national research on the legal issues faced by people living with blood-borne viruses (BBVs) in Australia, and the impact those issues have on their health and wellbeing.

The HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) is the only specialist community legal centre for people with HIV- or hepatitis-related legal matters in Australia. Danielle Munro, solicitor at HALC, spoke with us this month about her role at the Centre and her involvement in the Health+Law Partnership as research solicitor. Danielle also described the services HALC offers, some of the biggest challenges facing its clients, and how the Centre’s work takes a holistic approach to the law.

In 2012, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law Report brought together fourteen experts and advocates on HIV, law, public health and development from Africa, the Middle East, North America, the Pacific, South America and South-East Asia to make recommendations for improvement in the areas of public health, human rights and law, that could improve responses to HIV. The Commission’s final report, ‘HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health’, was a landmark intervention in human rights and legal issues relating to HIV globally.

Louisa Luong joined the Health+Law team earlier this month as a research assistant, working primarily on the Legal Needs Study. Louisa has a background in migration law and was a solicitor at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), providing casework and legal advice across a range of migration matters. We spoke to Lou about her experience and role.

As part of the Health+Law research partnership’s involvement in advocacy and education campaigns in relation to blood-borne viruses, Health+Law Chief Investigators Dr Anthea Vogl and Dr David Carter and Research Assistant Dr Elsher Lawson-Boyd authored a Brief on Blood Borne Virus (BBV) Infection via Spitting or Biting.

Associate Professor Kate Seear, research lead in the Gender, Law and Drugs (GLaD) program at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University and one of Health+Law’s expert advisors, commenced a three-year research project in 2020 addressing legal, policy and practice discrimination related to Hepatitis C in a ‘post-cure’ world.

The recently published Health+Law article, The Legal Needs of People Living with a Sexually Transmissible Infection or Blood-Borne Virus: Perspectives from a Sample of the Australian Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Workforce, represents an important first step towards understanding the incidence and impact of unmet legal needs on people living with blood borne viruses (BBVs) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Australia.

Little has been understood about the legal issues, needs and access to justice for people living with HIV and viral hepatitis in Australia. The recently published Health+Law research article, HIV related Legal Needs, Demographic Change, and Trends in Australia since 1992: A Review of Legal Administrative Data, analysed unique legal administrative data from the HIV/ AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) to develop insight into the trends and types of HIV and viral hepatitis-related legal issues experienced by HALC clients, as well as how these legal issues and HALC client demographics have changed over time, from 1992 to 2020.

A recent Health+Law article has been published in the Journal of Law and Medicine, The Legal Needs of People Living with a Sexually Transmissible Infection or Blood-Borne Virus: Perspectives From a Sample of the Australian Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Workforce, authored by David J Carter, Benjamin Riley, Rhys Evans, Adel Rahmani, Anthea Vogl, Alexandra Stratigos, James J Brown, Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia.

The Health+Law research partnership is inviting people living with HIV or Hepatitis B to participate in new research about their life and health as part of our Legal Needs Study (LeNS).

LeNS uses both interviews and a survey to understand more about the legal needs and experiences of community members.