Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In some respects, I think some of what I am going to say and put on the record may be a bit superfluous, having listened in my office to some of the incredible contributions of the member for Macarthur and also the member for Lalor and my colleague, neighbour and friend the member for Hotham. But I do think, for some of the reasons outlined, it is important that as many of us in this place as possible stand up and put on the public record our support for vaccination, for evidence based public policy. I know it is an old-fashioned concept at the moment—particularly for many opposite, when you talk about climate change and things like that—that public policy should be based on the best available scientific evidence and accumulated knowledge. But, as someone who studied a science degree many years ago—not that I was the greatest science student; I was otherwise occupied at university at times—and as someone who trained in the scientific method and firmly believes that our policy must be based on evidence and reason, I think that needs to be said.

We're fortunate to live in a society and a country where, through the impact of an effective national immunisation program, we have either largely forgotten or have never known the impact of mass death and disability caused by vaccine-preventable communicable diseases. As the member for Hotham said though, if we reach back not too far in our family histories, we can discover those stories. For instance, my daughter's grandfather still, in his 70s, suffers the effects of polio from many years ago. So it is important to remember the enormous public health benefits of vaccinations and indeed the millions of lives saved every year. But societies that forget and ignore science can all too easily slip into complacency, where the validity of immunisation is questioned. As it turns out, off-the-cuff comments by ill-informed internet conspiracy theorists are not a great basis for public health policy or life-changing decisions for individuals with regard to their families and children.

To their shame, the government did recently, as the member for Hotham said, let this tired and damaging debate swirl around again by not rebuking Senator Hanson in speaking strongly and failed to comprehensively shut down this misinformation. There was, as I saw in the paper this morning, a form of redemption, if you like, perhaps subject to verification, in that Polly Tommey, the antivaxxer activist from the UK, has been banned by the immigration department. Perhaps I could almost say the first positive thing I have ever said about the minister for immigration. That sounds like a good decision, a wise decision, should it be true. The shameful claim which was made by this individual that doctors were murderers was rebutted this morning in the paper by Dr John Cunningham, who said simply, 'Babies will die if not vaccinated.' So I think we would focus on that rather than the ridiculous claim that doctors are murderers.

The nature of the bill, as has been noted, provides for a couple of minor, sensible technical amendments to the Australian Immunisation Register Act, aka the No Jab, No Pay arrangements, which will allow for four other types of medical specialists—paediatricians, public health physicians, infectious diseases physicians and clinical immunologists—to grant exemptions to vaccination requirements. Currently, somewhat surprisingly actually, only GPs can do that. So it does seem sensible. You can't imagine that a paediatrician or a medical specialist couldn't also do this work. The amendments will make explicit in the legislation that the provision of vaccination information to the register must be by registered vaccination providers. Labor of course supports this bill. But, as ever, this government has a tendency to fiddle around the edges of legislation and call it reform when wider issues remain.

As has been outlined, but to briefly record, our immunisation program has been incredibly effective. Deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases have reportedly fallen by 99 per cent since the introduction of childhood vaccines 85 years ago. Vaccination rates are currently a little over 90 per cent, but, as the member for Hotham teased out, we do need to make sure the vaccination rates are as high as possible. We actually share the suburb of Springvale, and I know the issues you are talking about, particularly with newly arrived migrants and so on—the difficulty and the import of having these programs reach out and also the importance of having the programs available for temporary migrants, illegal arrivals or whatever, because it's a population-level impact to make sure that our public health programs don't discriminate by visa status and so on.

But for highly infectious diseases, and I will use the example of measles, we need much higher vaccination rates—at least 95 per cent—to provide that herd immunity. This complacency and refusal to vaccinate without medical justification is dangerous to the wider community as well as to individuals, particularly our kids. There are very few approved exemptions to immunisation requirements. The primary one is medical contraindication—things like anaphylaxis, compromised immunity and so on. So it is critical that only medical practitioners can grant such exemptions and provide advice to government as to whether vaccination requirements have been met.

Now, I will just turn, because it is important to record them, to the ridiculous statements this year by Senator Hanson, presumably advised by—currently—Senator Roberts; we'll see how that plays out. He is well known for his rejection of science, evidence and reason. Senator Hanson questioned the validity and safety of vaccines and encouraged parents to get their children nonexistent tests—tests that actually don't exist—for allergic reactions. I want to record in the Hansard the comment from AMA President Dr Michael Gannon, who said:

… it is the lament of doctors and scientists across Australia that evidence-based treatments do get called into question …

He said that nearly 10 per cent of Australian parents 'are so-called vaccine-hesitant' and 'can be swayed very easily by any message which might be seen to question the validity of the science'. In another interview he said it is essential that there is accurate information and that this idea that parents can spend 30 minutes on Wikipedia and come to a greater understanding of the issues than their doctor and the accumulated wisdom of all the world's medical scientists is ludicrous. That is what the member for Hughes did, I think, with his climate change comments in that wonderful speech. And I have to grant it to him: it is quite an art to be able to make a speech on any bill and bring it back to why burning coal is good. Nevertheless.

I do confess to be someone who occasionally is guilty of a bit of late-night Dr Google myself. I've diagnosed myself, after a couple of wines, with a range of dreadful cancers. So I do recommend going to the doctor and staying away from Dr Google.

An honourable member: No self-examination!

No self-examination! But the government's response to its dear friend Senator Hanson in the Senate was somewhat more measured. For those listening at home—although I don't think anyone actually listens to the Fed Chamber at home, but it is in HansardI will say that I wonder why the government wouldn't just quickly speak out against such unscientific nonsense, when the evidence is clear and the answer a mix of politics and substance. Politics: the Prime Minister's brilliant move to call a double dissolution election means that his government—and I use the word 'government' in the formal sense, not because there is a lot of actual governing going on this week—are hostage to nutters and fringe dwellers. But you do have to have a listen to government MPs debating climate change and you'll quickly learn the depth of the irrationality and the disregard for science and evidence—why this bill and the support shown for immunisation programs as represented by this bill is welcomed. It contrasts, of course, with what I would say is an old-fashioned respect for science and evidence on the immunisation program on our side, with any antivaxxer stuff being quickly rebutted. But we're listening and are of course aware of the growing risk to the community from ill-informed antivaccination campaigners.

Importantly, we've been calling for some time for an appropriately resourced public awareness campaign on the importance of vaccinations. Indeed this bill, by formalising the ability of other providers, may give us other agents and channels to through which to promulgate such a campaign. So we were pleased that the government belatedly but finally agreed with us and announced a national immunisation awareness campaign in April. It's fair to say that $5.5 million over three years may not quite cut it in terms of delivering an effective public health message for such an important topic, and it's disappointing, particularly after allowing such myths and misconceptions to flourish. But countering this information and providing parents with this information is important, and I hope there's transparent monitoring, to be fair, of the impacts of the campaign on immunisation rates, public education and so on so that if additional resources are warranted they can be provided swiftly. We have always offered our support to the government on the sorts of measures that will lead to increased immunisation rates and a more efficient system, as this bill does, and a little more integrity in the system, but we expect more when it comes to public safety.

In the time remaining, I would echo the member for Hotham's comments. It is directly related to this system. There is an overdue measure of the No Jab, No Play state and territory laws to allow childcare centres to turn away children who are not immunised. If that sounds familiar, if you think you've heard it before perhaps—that's right—it was promised by former Prime Minister Abbott when opposition leader. Perhaps it was one of those non-core promises! There are core and non-core promises. Four years on, there has been no action. But, still, I was pleased to see that the new Minister for Health announced in March 2017 that the government will be proceeding with these laws. We have not heard anything since. It doesn't seem to have been on the COAG agenda. But, nevertheless, we will remain hopeful that, if the government can stop stand spending their time obsessing about marriage equality and other people's relationships, they may get back to governing and actually follow through on this.

The other thing I would say with respect to public health, because this of course sits in a broader context, is that the member for Gilmore, the member for Brand, some other members of this House and I were privileged to spend the last week of June after the last sitting week in Thailand and Myanmar with the Pacific Friends of the Global Fund. We were looking particularly on that trip at Australia's work and contribution in preventing, stopping and stamping out malaria and stopping the transmission of HIV and tuberculosis in South-East Asia. There is a very close link to vaccinations.

What really came home to me were a couple of things. Firstly, Australia has an enormous national interest in this. In our work in Australia on reaching 90 to 95 per cent immunity it is so critically important that we don't live in a bubble and we don't live in isolation from the world around us. As part of things like our immunisation register in this bill to strengthen and improve its integrity, we must also continue to invest in our work with our neighbours overseas. There is a feel-good aspect to that. There is a moral contribution as a good citizen, a developed country and a good global citizen to work with our neighbours. But there is also a direct national self-interest in this. When we have a look at communicable diseases we can think it's fine to have our herd immunity. But with increasing amounts of travel, with such a migrant compromised society travelling to these countries, with Australian tourists and so on we have an enormous national interest in accelerating the efforts to stamp out these diseases, both vaccine-preventable communicable diseases and also tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and so on. Indeed, the rise in Papua New Guinea, for instance—only a few hundred metres from Queensland—of drug-resistant tuberculosis and drug-resistant malaria has potentially devastating consequences for Australia.

So the link with the vaccinations, particularly, is that investment in building capability to stamp out these diseases is actually very much the other side of the coin of investment in rolling out vaccine programs, because both rely on strengthening the capability of the public health systems and the ministries of policymakers. But also when the members for Gilmore, Brand and I were traipsing around we met with the Thai royal princess. We met with government ministers—

See this speech in context