The Let Us Give campaign has applauded the West Australian National Party for supporting an end to the current gay blood ban.

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On Saturday at the WA Nationals state convention, the WA Young Nationals proposed the following motion that was passed with overwhelming support:

“That this State Convention of the Nationals WA calls on the National Blood Authority and Red Cross Lifeblood to review policies around blood donation to make them less discriminatory to LGBTIQ+ community members and increase the number of potential blood donors.”

Tay Alers, President, WA Young Nationals said the current rules did not meet the standards that Western Australians expected.

“The WA Young Nationals are proud that our state party, the Nationals WA, strongly agrees with our view that the current blood donation ban does not pass the pub test – especially when Red Cross Lifeblood are crying out for more blood donors.”

“Many in the LGBTIQA+ community want to donate blood and moving to a risk assessment model would allow them to do so. It’s common sense to review the current policies in place, to make them less discriminatory, and increase the number of potential blood donors.”

Let Us Give spokesperson Thomas Buxereau thanks the political party for their statement of support for changing the rules.

“We applaud the WA Nationals for their stand in support of a less discriminatory blood donation policy for Australia, as well as the WA Young Nationals for proposing the successful motion.”

“Other countries like Canada and the UK have lifted the ban on blood donation by gay men, and bisexual men, trans women and some non-binary people who have sex wth men, instead adopting a new system that individually assesses the risk of all donors.”

“This is the policy Australia should also adopt if it is to have a less discriminatory blood supply and one that taps into new sources of safe blood.” Buxereau said.

The WA Nationals join senior federal Labor minister, Tanya Plibersek, who has expressed her support for blood donor reform, as well as the Australian Greens who strongly back change.

Buxereau said it is pleasing to see growing support across the political spectrum for blood donor reform and urged supporters to sign the Let Us Give petition:

The WA National Party also supported a Young Nationals motion calling for “a Parliamentary inquiry into the most effective way of legislating a ban of SOGICE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts) in Western Australia”.

OIP Staff

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