Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I support the Australian Immunisation Register Bill 2015. Recently my wife and I were fortunate enough to welcome two beautiful new daughters—twins—into our family. When I look at those beautiful four-month-old babies and I think about how much they rely on their parents, I think that probably the most vulnerable a human being can be over the course of their life is when they are a newborn. They are completely reliant on their parents for their welfare, for their health and indeed for their survival. Without the support, the care and the nurturing of a parent, newborns simply do not survive. In many cases, going back centuries, that was the case—that children did not survive without the proper care and support of their parents.

Because of that, parents have a natural instinct, an in-built instinct, to care for their young children. In our society, through government policy and through legislation, we encourage that natural instinct. We in many respects enshrine parental duty in policy and legislation—a duty to care for and bring up their child to ensure they do survive and grow, to ensure we are catering for their every health and welfare need. Part of that obligation, in my view, is to ensure that a child is healthy. That entails accepting the conventions and the positive nature of western medicine and the advances of western medicine, particularly when it comes to vaccination against disease in children.

I have received a small number of emails from parents and constituents in Kingsford Smith who do not believe that vaccination is the most appropriate way to care for a child, to nurture a child, to grow a child. I accept a parent's right to have differing views about the way they wish to raise their children and to cater for and care for their health. That is a parent's right—it is both human nature and a human right. But, from a government perspective, in order to put in place policies to achieve greatest social benefit—the greatest need for the greatest number of individuals—the position on vaccinations is clear, in my view. The benefits far outweigh the costs. Quite simply, vaccination saves lives. The statistics and the evidence support this. Medical and scientific evidence now consistently asserts that vaccination is the safest and most effective way to protect a child and an adult from harmful diseases.

In June of this year, the Office of the Chief Scientist released a report on vaccinations, and the conclusions of that report are, I think, instructive for what is in this bill that we are debating here today. Those conclusions are that the risks of severe side effects from vaccinations are extremely rare. In fact, in terms of a statistical analysis, the data on severe side effects of vaccinations are that it is a one in 100,000 to one in one million chance of a child experiencing harmful side effects from vaccinations. So a side effect from vaccination is an extreme rarity.

The World Health Organization estimates that each year vaccinations prevent two million to three million deaths from preventable diseases. So the evidence and the medical research are, quite simply, irrefutable: vaccinations save lives. From a government perspective, we need to do all we can to ensure that we are encouraging as many children in our society as possible to be vaccinated. Vaccination works. Vaccination prevents disease, as we have seen, and in some cases completely eradicates diseases—smallpox is the classic example. We as a society are on the cusp of ridding the world of polio. But preventable diseases that many Australians do not believe exist in our society anymore because they are so rare due to vaccination, such as tuberculosis and whooping cough, still occur in other nations and, in some cases, in Australia. That is why it is important that as governments we are doing all we can to support and encourage the uptake of vaccination within our community.

My own consultations with local doctors in our community also provide me with peace of mind that vaccination is the best way to go in protecting the interests of children and preventing disease. Every local doctor whom I have consulted is of the view that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the costs. In my view, the debate is one in which the evidence is quite clear: that vaccination is important, that we need to encourage vaccination, that we need to provide incentives for parents to vaccinate their child and that vaccinations save lives.

And that is why this bill is worthy of support. This bill establishes a new legislative framework to manage and expand the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register—the ACIR—and the National Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Program Register, or the HPV program. The ACIR will expand in two phases under this legislation. In January 2016, the ACIR, which currently records vaccinations for children aged seven and under, will expand to include those under the age of 20. The purpose of this change is for the implementation of the No Jab, No Pay policy, which is a positive measure and one that I support. From September 2016, the ACIR will further expand to cover all vaccinations from birth to death and to become a national immunisation register.

This bill also replaces the HPV register with the Australian School Vaccination Register, which captures a greater number of vaccinations, such as chickenpox, tetanus and whooping cough. The use of data in the management and delivery of health care, a relatively recent phenomenon, has become increasingly important in the support of evidence based health care which promises greater outcomes and saving a far greater number of lives across Australia.

Established in 1996, the ACIR has provided the opportunity to improve vaccination rates, in particular through the targeting of regions and demographics identified as having gaps in vaccine coverage. Indeed, through immunisation and the elimination of carriers to spread disease, it is even possible to completely eradicate some diseases. I have mentioned smallpox as one of those that were eradicated, but the same effect is being had with polio.

But the threat remains. Measles and whooping cough continue to be diseases which afflict, in particular, too many children in our community. There is a threat of measles returning to Australia, as was recently the case in America, with 644 cases recorded in 2014 despite the disease being declared eliminated there 15 years ago. With the threat of disease remaining high, there has been a concerted effort from health professionals, including the Public Health Association of Australia, which has been advocating for over 10 years for the expansion of the ACIR to include adults, and that is what this bill actually does.

With an increasing number of vaccines now recommended for adolescents and adults in Australia, such as influenza, whooping cough for pregnant mothers, shingles for older Australians and HPV for adolescents and young adults, the national immunisation register is an idea that will boost the vaccination and immunisation of people under those categories.

The bill will also facilitate the transfer of data to Centrelink to allow the government to undertake the No Jab, No Pay measures that encourage parents to have their children immunised by removing conscientious objection as a ground for being able to refuse vaccinations while still being able to claim family tax benefits. I mentioned earlier that governments have a duty to cater for the greatest need for the greatest good. That is what this particular measure does. I know some within our society and, indeed, within our community have been opposed to this, but, from a government perspective, there is no real alternative. The government must use public policy incentives to ensure that we increase the rates of immunisation in our community and that we do all we can to ensure all children in Australia are immunised against preventable disease. That is what this measure will do. It will boost that incentive and that rate of immunisation within our community and, on that basis, I support the measure. It builds on a number of measures that Labor undertook in government. When we were in government, we made important changes to family payments to lift immunisation rates, including linking the family tax benefit end-of-year supplement to immunisation.

Labor is committed to ensuring that every child grows up healthy, happy and strong. We also believe that parents have a right to a say when considering health decisions about their child, but, when it comes to immunisation, there is a strong public health interest in ensuring that every child is immunised. We have seen all too frequently, unfortunately, tragic stories of children who passed away in the vulnerable early years—particularly in the first year of life—from preventable diseases such as whooping cough. They are simply tragic stories. With the advances in medical science and with the changes in evidence based medicine that have occurred over the last century, we know that immunisation works and we know that we can prevent diseases such as whooping cough and measles from killing young children. That is why this initiative must be supported by the parliament.

Good health care is not just about the child-years; it is about cradle-to-grave health care. That is why it is pleasing to see, as part of these reforms, measures that will also increase the rate of immunisation amongst adult Australians, particularly with respect to HPV. That will ensure that we are not only doing all we can for vulnerable children but preventing diseases from cradle-to-grave in Australia. That is a sign of a good healthcare system. That is why Labor has been so vehemently opposed to the changes sought to be made by the Abbott and the Turnbull governments: cuts to health care, in particular, and the Medicare co-payment, which would have put a cost on seeing a doctor—the important first level of preventable health care in our country. The $50 billion worth of cuts to hospitals that are still sitting in the budget papers have had an effect on the Prince of Wales Hospital in the community that I represent, with beds being closed and positions lost. Cradle-to-grave health care is not simply about providing the right incentives for immunisation; it is about ensuring that we are providing the necessary resources through the whole healthcare system to prevent disease. This is an important measure that will ensure that we are doing all we can to provide the right incentives for parents to immunise their children and for more adolescents and adults to become immunised against preventable disease. On that basis, I support the legislation.

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