Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Three now! There is a whole range of us in this place who are recent parents, and I count myself among their number. I think one of the hardest parts of being a new parent—although people tell you it is the sleep or something like that—is taking the little bloke or the little girl along to their immunisation experience. You know in your head that it is in your child's best interest, but your instincts kick in and of course you want to protect your child from pain. But the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term pain from the jab.

Fortunately, in my community the Logan City Council's community immunisation clinics have made what is a difficult day a whole lot easier. I want to spend some time paying tribute to my local council, which has been extraordinarily good and extraordinarily far-sighted when it comes to this issue. They have offered free immunisation for the community since 1979; so, for 36 years they have done that. Immunisations are now held weekly at six locations in Logan and are staffed by the most incredibly friendly, professional and helpful nurses. Over the last few months I have had cause to spend time with the nurses at Logan North Library and Logan Central Library just near my electorate office, and they really are the most extraordinary people. I want to thank them for the work that they do in our community.

The Logan City Council also offers a school-based immunisation program to local students in grade 8 and grade 10. Logan is also the first council in Australia to offer a vaccination outreach program to at-risk families in our communities who are less likely to take up that offer of free immunisations. For a long time now—36 years or so—we have had free immunisations, but there has been a group in our community which, for whatever reason, is less likely to take up that opportunity. Now we have an outreach program, which is very important to getting more kids immunised.

In 2009 the council found that in parts of my electorate those immunisation rates had fallen to unacceptable levels. Scientists believe that to have full effectiveness vaccination rates should reach at least 95 per cent. In Queensland just over 90 per cent of children aged between one and five are vaccinated, so we need to do better there. In 2009, when the council turned its attention to this issue, parts of my electorate were dropping towards the 80 per cent range. One of the reasons for this was lack of transport. That was one of the key reasons parents offered up for not getting their children vaccinated. So, in order to make immunisations more accessible, nurses involved in the outreach vaccination program now visit at-risk families in areas of Logan every Wednesday.

Now the program is vaccinating around 1,500 people every year at their home, which means 1,500 people every year are protected from suffering potentially life-threatening diseases themselves or from passing disease on to others, many of whom would not have been vaccinated were it not for the program. Again, I salute Logan City Council for that outreach program. I encourage other councils around the country to take up the Logan model, because it is doing such good in our community.

We all benefit from high rates of immunisation, as the member for Higgins, the member for Throsby and other speakers have said. We are all aware of the theory and the practice: vaccines trigger the immune system to fight against certain viruses, which makes the immune system able to respond to diseases more effectively. The World Health Organization puts the benefits of vaccination very, very clearly when they say that:

Vaccination has greatly reduced the burden of infectious diseases. Only clean water, also considered to be a basic human right, performs better.

There are incredible benefits of vaccination at the individual level, with decreased likelihood of contracting those deadly diseases and decreased severity if the disease is contracted. For society as a whole the benefits are even greater, with vaccination associated with what economists, in economicspeak, would call positive externalities. It was the World Health Organization that estimated that vaccines prevent almost six million deaths annually. In the US there has been a 99 per cent decrease in the incidence of the nine diseases for which vaccines have been recommended for decades. The greatest value of vaccination comes from what scientists call 'herd protection', which occurs when a sufficient proportion—usually 95 per cent, as I said before—of the population is immune. That is why getting every child immunised is so important, not only for their own protection but for the protection of others as well.

The Australian experience is that vaccination has been incredibly successful. One disease, poliomyelitis, was declared eradicated in Australia in 1987—because of vaccination. Smallpox was declared eradicated in Australia in 1938—because of vaccination. Measles was declared eliminated in Australia in March 2014—because of vaccination. But we still have a bit more work to do. The story is not all good for vaccination in Australia. In September 2014, the Department of Health reported that the rolling annualised rate of children fully immunised by two years of age decreased again by 0.9 per cent to 89.2 per cent. Further, measles re-emerged in Brisbane this year, with seven cases detected at the University of Queensland's St Lucia campus. More of these isolated outbreaks are likely to occur if we do not work to increase our community vaccination rates. All Australians should have an interest in ensuring all young people are fully immunised and taking advantage of the free vaccination programs available across the country—and perfected in my community.

Those are some of the reasons why Labor will be supporting this legislation before the House today. The broadening of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register to become the Australian Immunisation Register and to include all vaccinations from birth to death will do a lot to help us understand vaccination trends and potentially improve vaccination take-up rates. Given the increasing number of vaccines now recommended for adolescents and adults in Australia—influenza, pneumococcal, whooping cough for pregnant mothers, HPV for adolescents and young adults, and shingles for older people—it is time for us to collect that information on behalf of all Australians and to put it to good use.

If unexpected disease outbreaks do occur, as recently with whooping cough—with tragic consequences for newborns—and with measles at UQ, immunisation registers will help determine whether they are due to low vaccine coverage in an area and will enable a better targeted response. They will also help us to determine areas and demographics on which to focus outreach and vaccination advocacy programs—as per the successful models seen in my community of Logan City.

This is why Labor will be supporting the Australian Immunisation Register Bill before the House today. I am very pleased to see that all sides of the House support the bill. We do so because we want to see the end of certain debilitating viruses in our lifetime—or certainly in the lifetime of our children. I sincerely support any initiative to increase the vaccination rate among young Australians, I support Logan City Council's vaccination outreach program, I support this bill and I am pleased to see that all members in this place are also likely to support this important legislation.

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