Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, for those kind words. I do want to sum up these important bills in this important debate that we have had here in the chamber today, and I will start with the Australian Immunisation Register Bill 2015. The Australian Immunisation Register Bill 2015 creates a new consolidated legislative framework for the establishment and ongoing management of Australian immunisation registers. Currently, separate legislation within the Health Insurance Act 1973 and the National Health Act 1953 provide the foundation for how the two national immunisation registers are operated. In this context, it is considered timely to consolidate the two pieces of separate legislation for the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register and the human papillomavirus register into new legislation to provide for the ongoing management and data capture for both registers. This bill will lay the foundations for future work to move towards an integrated system that captures and reports on all vaccines given in Australia from birth to death, providing a single front door for consumers and immunisation providers.

This bill provides the foundations under which Australian immunisation registers are operated. The bill facilitates the appropriate collection of Commonwealth assigned identifiers, such as Medicare number, for the purposes of the registers. The bill provides for the establishment of the register and the reporting of certain personal information about individuals. The bill also creates an offence for the unauthorised disclosure of personal information contained within the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register. The bill will allow the register to facilitate cross-referencing of information about the vaccination status of individuals to databases developed for the purposes of the register.

I want to thank all members in this chamber for their contributions to the debate on this bill—the government members, of course, for their strong support for the government's legislation, but also opposition members for their very strong bipartisan endorsement of this important legislative approach that the government has taken. I do want to thank all members and commend all members on the very personal stories and experiences that they put forward during the course of this debate highlighting the urgent and important direction that the government is taking in this regard.

Through this bill, expansion of the national immunisation registers and the way they continue to operate in the future will not only benefit the health of individuals. General practitioners and healthcare providers will have a consistent way in which immunisation records can be obtained for individuals of all ages and not just the young.

Turning now to the Australian Immunisation Register (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2015—obviously, the consequential and transitional arrangements coming from the immunisation register bill—this bill will provide for the consequential and transitional provisions required to support the operation of the Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015. Again, I thank members for their contributions to this debate and the manner in which this debate was conducted.

The Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 will have amendments that commence in three stages. Part 4A of the Health Insurance Act 1973 will be repealed, along with the associated offence provisions relating to the register. These offences will be replaced by an offence under the new Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015. Additionally, minor amendments to subsection 130(5F) are proposed which will facilitate the disclosure of Medicare enrolment data to the register. Minor amendments to part 9BA of the National Health Act 1953 will be initiated to refer to a prescribed body within the meaning of the new Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015. The Freedom of Information Act 1982 schedule 3 will also be amended to provide for information in the registers to be exempt from disclosure under section 38 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 in response to a freedom of information request. Amendments to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 to allow the definition of a recognised immunisation provider to be consistent with the meaning of a recognised vaccination provider in the new immunisation register bill is also proposed to occur from 1 January 2016. Amendments to the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 will repeal the definition of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register which links to the Health Insurance Act 1973 and refer instead to the register operated under the new Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015. Finally, amendments to the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988, the Human Services (Medicare) Act 1973 and the Human Services (Centrelink) Act 1997 are also proposed to prescribe that the Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 is a designated program act.

Amendments commencing later in 2016 include changes to the Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 to reflect the name change of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register to become the Australian Immunisation Register and the provision to be able to collect vaccination information for all individuals regardless of age. A secondary amendment to the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 is proposed to repeal the definition of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register and allow for the use and disclosure of healthcare identifiers for the purposes of uploading information from the register onto an individual's personally controlled electronic health record.

The final transition arrangement proposed is to commence from 1 January 2017 onwards. The provisions of the new Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 will apply equally to the Australian Immunisation Register and the Australian school vaccination register. Following this expansion, part 9BA of the National Health Act 1953 will be repealed. The schedules listed in the transitional and consequential arrangements in this bill will only commence if the Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 obtains royal assent.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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