Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020, introduced last year, and recognise that we've cooperated in shifting the agenda around today to bring this bill on now so that it can pass with the support of both sides of the House this evening and be considered as a matter of urgency in the Senate, so that the bill passes this week. As a general proposition, this is important reform, but it's particularly important in the context of the COVID vaccine rollout strategy. So I want to indicate that the Labor Party will be supporting this bill without amendment. As a general matter, this is, as I said, an important reform to our National Immunisation Program, but it's particularly important to ensure the smooth, effective, timely rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

I want to talk very briefly about the importance of the National Immunisation Program, the NIP. This program has enjoyed the bipartisan support of this parliament for many years. It's one of the pantheon of important public health measures that give Australians what is, I think, the best health system in the world. We have, at a relatively modest share of GDP, a fantastic primary healthcare system, underpinned by universal coverage through Medicare; we have the best medicine system, underpinned by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, introduced back in the 1940s by the Chifley government; we have a great public hospital system that takes in everyone that comes through its doors, not charging people, as you see in some developed economies; and we have a range of other measures as well.

One of the things of which we can also be proud is our immunisation and vaccination program. The NIP was started by the Howard government in the early years of the Howard government, but it came on the back of bipartisan support, which the idea of a robust, evidence based immunisation program has enjoyed from both parties in this House. In question time today, the minister quite rightly, I think, pointed to the extraordinary achievement that he reported a couple of weeks ago: reaching the benchmark 95 per cent immunisation rate for five-year-olds. The fact that the immunisation rate for five-year-old Indigenous children is 97 per cent is also an extraordinary achievement of which this chamber, the government, the broader community, the health community and all of the advocates of good evidence based immunisation programs can be rightly proud. This is going to have lasting public health benefits for the community, most notably for those Australians as they enjoy, hopefully, very full, robust, healthy lives.

On the back of the NIP, the register has been in place for several years as well. Its success has been more patchy. Although there are high levels of upload of childhood vaccinations to the register, particularly vaccinations for nought- to five-year-olds, the upload of vaccinations to the register for adolescents, adults and, in particular, older Australians is very patchy indeed. The minister said in his second reading speech that the upload rates for the two main vaccinations for over-70-year-olds, pneumococcal and shingles, are running at only about 40 per cent. He said in his second reading speech that the rate of registration of flu vax on the register was running at about a 50 per cent. I've read reports that last year's flu vax only achieved about a 40 per cent rate of registration. There may be obvious reasons for that lower rate last year given the pressure of the COVID crisis that the health system and health practitioners were under during that peak winter period—particularly in Victoria, but not only in Victoria. Clearly, those rates, whether they're 40 or 50 per cent, are not adequate. We need to lift them, particularly in the context of COVID, to as close as possible to 100 per cent.

There would be very good public policy reasons for this legislation, even if we were not struggling through a pandemic. The NIP is taxpayer funded, and the whole community should get the maximum benefit from that very substantial taxpayer investment. With all of the privacy assurances that the minister rightly gave us in the second reading speech, which I'm satisfied are contained in the legislation, I think it's reasonable to expect that immunisation funded by the taxpayer be uploaded to a register. It is for the benefit of the whole community. We and our health experts and agencies will be able to understand just how well our immunisation program is rolling out and how we can fill gaps, if there are gaps. Also, individuals will be able to access their own vaccination histories through the immunisation history statements—the personalised IHSs. That is, as a general proposition, a good public policy reform. But this is especially important in the context of COVID-19.

It is absolutely critical that not just the government but the whole Australian community understands how effectively the COVID-19 vaccine is rolling out, and we will only know that with good data. This is, as I have said before and as everyone in this House understands very well, the most monumental challenge we have faced in our health system in living memory. We are going to have to give two doses of a COVID vaccine to as many Australians as we can. The Pfizer vaccine is only approved through the TGA for those aged over 16. That may change over time, but, certainly for adults and older adolescents, we want to hit pretty much everyone if we can. We are talking about 40 million or 50 million doses of the COVID vaccine over the next several months. In the midst of that, we are going to have to have the usual flu vac campaign properly spaced around the two doses of COVID vaccine. This is a monumental logistical challenge and we will only know how well we are tracking on that if we have good data. The best way to get that good data is for it to be uploaded to the AIR, the register, for our departmental bureaucrats to be able to check very clearly.

It is also going to be important for consumers to be able show a record of their own immunisation. I've said it is a good thing, as a general proposition, that people are able to access details of their immunisation history through their HIS. This is going to be a good thing as a general proposition. But we know, as we continue to work through this pandemic, that, for many people, access to their workplaces, to their employment, is going to be dependent upon being able to demonstrate their vaccine record in a COVID context. Travel overseas is, most likely, going to require very clear, authoritative vaccine histories, and the AIR will be critical to that.

In his second reading speech—and I endorse this absolutely and without any hesitancy—the minister said mandatory reporting does not mean mandatory vaccination. There is a critical difference here. To the extent that there has been some concern and opposition raised in stakeholder consultation and community consultation around this bill, the minister and the department make the point that that is generally based on an innocent misunderstanding that, when we are talking about mandatory reporting, we are talking about mandatory vaccination. The minister has said—and Labor endorses the position—that the COVID vaccine is a voluntary vaccine. We encourage everyone to take it, unless there are very good reasons not to—and you should talk to your treating practitioners about that. Subject to that qualification, we encourage everyone to take it. But it is a voluntary vaccine.

All this bill does is say that, if you take the vaccine—if you take a flu vac or any of the other vaccines on the NIP—it will be uploaded to the register. A whole range of privacy protections have properly been put in place by the government. These are reflected in the bill and, importantly, they have been echoed by the minister again in his second reading speech. So I want to emphasise again that mandatory reporting does not mean mandatory vaccination. The minister made that point, and I echo the minister's statement.

The bill makes it clear that it is intended that this will get up and running pretty quickly—and so it should. If this vaccine rollout is going to be smooth, timely and effective, the provisions of this bill that make mandatory the uploading of vaccination histories will start on 1 March for the COVID vaccines and for the flu vac. That is something we support very strongly. For all other vaccines on the national immunisation program, the start date will be 1 July. Obviously, this being a mandatory scheme, as set out in this bill there will be penalties and consequences for noncompliance. Some of those are reasonably substantial fines, penalty units, contained in the bill. The department, as I understand it, have made it clear that they intend to take an escalating approach to non-compliance, focusing very much on education and information of health practitioners. Labor very much supports that. Of course in any mandatory framework there needs to be a series of consequences for non-compliance. But we understand, as I know the government understands and members on the government benches understand, the pressures our health system are under, the pressures our doctors, our nurses, our aged-care facilities, our Aboriginal community controlled health organisations and others right through the health system are under. This is another systemic requirement we are expecting them to undertake, and we should take an escalating approach to their compliance with it.

I want to note that this reform, which we say is a sensible, important reform, has been supported by a range of key stakeholders, including the AMA, the college of GPs and a range of others. As I said, to the extent that there has been some opposition expressed to this legislation, the government makes the point that much of that is based on the innocent misunderstanding that what this legislation is seeking to do is to make the vaccination mandatory, rather than the reporting of a voluntary vaccination. I want to make that point as well. This is part of the reason we're not only agreeing to the bill but agreeing to bring it forward and have it debated in an expedited fashion in this House and ultimately in the Senate so we can pass it this week. This is a critical link, one of many critical links in the chain of a successful vaccine rollout here.

We dealt with another element in that chain, another piece of reform to existing legislation, only yesterday with some of the therapeutic goods legislation as well. We are trying—I know my predecessor as the shadow health minister, the member for McMahon, was very focused on the opposition being as constructive as we possibly can be through the pandemic. We know that is what our communities want. It doesn't matter if they're Liberal, Labor or swinging voters; all they're focused on is their government succeeding. They don't care so much whether they're a federal Liberal or a state Labor or state Liberal government; they want their governments to succeed in the fight against the virus, and they expect their oppositions to be as constructive as they possibly can be. That doesn't mean giving a blank cheque and not asking questions that need to be asked, but it means being as constructive as we possibly can be.

I said before that we've been very supportive, broadly, of the vaccination strategy that's been outlined by the government. There are questions, though, that we are continuing to ask, and we think the community wants clear answers to them as soon as they are available. We want to know when supplies will arrive from overseas. We understand that that is not within the control of the government. We understand that there are a whole range of important politics—I don't say that critically—being played out in the EU. We understand that the scale of the emergency in the European countries, the UK, North America and many countries besides is much higher than we're lucky enough to deal with here. But Australians do want to know when it's likely that the Pfizer and the imported batches of the AstraZeneca vaccine are going to land in Australia, how long batch testing will take and when we will actually start to get needles in people's arms. I will continue to make that point in as constructive a way as I can. I know the minister is approaching this with extraordinary hard work, with very good will, and I'm happy to say with a great deal of ministerial experience.

We also want information as soon as we're able to get it about the logistics of booking. The online entry point—it's been called different things at different times—that Accenture has been contracted to provide for the government is going to be critically important so people can easily work out how they make a booking for a vaccination. If their GP practice is not one of the, as I understand it, 2,000 or so out of 7,000 that have so far expressed interest in being part of the rollout, how they get connected to a GP they've never visited before; the extent to which they need to take their medical history; if theirs is not an aged based eligibility but a medical condition based eligibility, how will that work? How are aged-care facilities going to work through this system?

These are all important questions that Australians are asking, GPs are asking—I know—and aged-care facilities are asking. They're not asking them in a political way. They're asking them because they want us, as 'team Australia'—to take a description from the Prime Minister—to do this in the most timely, effective and speedy way we possibly can.

The last thing we do need to have a discussion about is how negotiations are progressing between the government and other suppliers. We do have supplies coming our way from Pfizer and from overseas, from AstraZeneca. We're leveraging that extraordinary asset we have in CSL at Broadmeadows. It's just a wonderful national asset, so we will be able to manufacture about 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine here in Australia. That's a wonderful thing, but we do want to know what the government is doing to diversify supply for down the track, because we know we are going to need additional supplies of vaccines, whether they are booster shots or what have you. It is important that the community broadly continue to be updated on how negotiations, for example, are progressing with a company like Moderna. It has a highly effective mRNA vaccine that it's already rolling out to some other countries. We'd like to know how negotiations are progressing for some future supply of that mRNA vaccine that is likely to be easier to adapt, to the extent we need booster shots that take account of the mutations or variants that we're already seeing in the virus around the world. I say that in a constructive way. I'm going to continue to ask these questions. I know that the minister is bringing very good will and is working extremely hard on this national pandemic. With those closing remarks, I commend the bill to the House and indicate the opposition's support for it.

Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a medical researcher, I have long understood the importance and utility of public health data collection. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Australians and many in this place have also become keenly aware of the importance of public health data. Nowhere is this more true than in my home state of Victoria. As our day-to-day lives hinged on the decisions of public health officials for months, access to accurate and timely public health data was critical. Looking forward, public health data will continue to be central to the effective and safe rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program.

In recognising this, I recommend the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020 to the House. The Australian Immunisation Register, better known as the AIR, is already a powerful tool for achieving optimal public health outcomes. However, the Morrison government's proposed reforms will strengthen the AIR further, while sharpening it to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The AIR was originally conceived to assist the National Immunisation Program in 2015 and has ultimately gone on to become an integral part of our health system. The AIR is a national register that records vaccinations given to people of all ages across Australia, including those administered under school vaccination programs. Any parent will tell you they are always searching for their immunisation records in order to ensure that they are keeping up to date for school records. The register has both micro and macro benefits for Australia's public health. On the micro level, it provides a one-stop-shop for health professionals to check and update their patients' vaccination records. On the macro level, it affords public health officials with the data needed to best shape and inform national health policy.

This bill will empower the government to use the AIR as a potent weapon in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and help keep Australians healthy and safe. The bill requires recognised vaccination providers to fully report all vaccines administered, allowing for the creation of an immunisation history statement. This can be accessed via Medicare online, myGov, the Express Plus Medicare mobile app, or, indeed, My Health Record. This bill will also grant the Commonwealth and the Secretary of the Department of Health the powers to compel a recognised vaccination provider to produce information if they do not comply with this reporting requirement. I want to make it clear again: we're talking about a mandatory aspect of provision for the provider, not for mandatory vaccination. In effect, the bill will make immunisation reporting mandatory and builds on the Morrison government's other important work in this area.

Our government has followed expert medical health advice throughout the COVID crisis. We are in a solid position to roll out the vaccine with no need for emergency approvals, as has occurred internationally, because we have followed the proven expert health advice all the way. After the extraordinary flourishing of scientific and technological outcomes that have occurred in the last year, we now are at a vital point to ensure that Australians embrace this progress with enthusiasm. I call on all Australians to continue to follow medical expert advice from the government. Let me be very clear. The only advice I back and support is the proven expert evidence based advice; the only advice the government supports and backs is the proven expert evidence based advice. We the government do not take advice from mavericks or solo operators who are pushing unproven advice, even if they are a member of parliament. We are only listening to expert medical advice, because we have many expert panels and expert institutions that are providing this. The government follows the expert medical advice of the TGA, a world-class institution by anyone's standards. It also follows the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, and the Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group on matters related to the COVID-19 vaccines.

A staged rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected to commence in mid-to-late February this year; that is a number of weeks away. It has been an incredible period of flourishing scientific and technological advances and something that all of us as Australians should feel very proud of. Now is not the time to discuss or talk about unproven medical treatments. It's time to encourage vaccination for all in Australia, including members of parliament, and we need to support this as we go forward. If anyone wants to access medical information, I recommend authorised websites from the government. If they want to access information via Facebook, I suggest they follow the Australian government's Department of Health for their information.

Australia already has one of the highest rates of vaccination and vaccination reporting in the world. According to the most recent figures, 95 per cent of Australian children aged five years and over and over 97 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged five were fully vaccinated. This is something worth noting, because more than 95 per cent of children aged five in Australia having been vaccinated is quite extraordinary, and it is the highest rate in the history of this country. It's something I know the Department of Health has been working very diligently to achieve. Even more impressive, Indigenous rates of vaccination are even higher than the overall rates, and this is something to be congratulated and lauded as we try to protect our most vulnerable children. Judging by these figures, Australian families clearly listen to the science, as we all should, when it comes to immunisation and keeping one another healthy and safe. It is a collective responsibility.

However, there are number of vaccines we know that are under-reported and potentially unreliably reported to the AIR, particularly in relation to adolescent and adult vaccinations, hence the requirement for this bill. For example, the vaccinations against herpes zoster and pneumococcal only have about a 40 per cent reporting rate, while seasonal flu vaccinations generally see only a 50 per cent reporting rate. This is simply not good enough. If providers are providing a vaccine, they should be required to report the provision of that vaccine. The current shortfalls in the voluntary reporting regime could put Australians at risk, as knowledge of full vaccination history may prove vital in an emergency, when treating and managing an individual's health and wellbeing. It's also important for our data with regard to the health of our public health community. This bill will therefore ensure that patients and their doctors have access to reliable, streamlined and comprehensive information on patients' immunisation history. It's about empowering individuals but also about the safety of the community. Not only will this be a vital tool in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine; it will have lasting benefits that enhance Australia's ability to combat the flu season and other diseases in years to come. Unfortunately, we know we haven't seen the back of pandemics. We know this is likely to be a new normal for the world.

This bill is an important part of the Morrison government's broader COVID vaccine and treatment strategy. It will provide a legislative framework for a comprehensive monitoring and surveillance plan so that any vaccine provided to Australians will be tracked to ensure ongoing safety. That is a commitment our government makes to the Australian community—that is, we will continue to monitor safety.

From the outset of the pandemic, the Morrison government has viewed the rapid discovery, production and administering of a COVID-19 vaccine as a paramount priority, but we will not let safety take a back seat in this country, and that is very, very important to the delivery of an outcome with regards to COVID in this country. Indeed, it was just over a year ago that Australian scientists were the first to grow the COVID virus outside of China, and this was critical in the development of trials for vaccines around the world.

The Morrison government has otherwise been at the forefront of the global effort to find a successful vaccine and treatment to stop the spread of COVID-19. We have a very diversified portfolio with regards to vaccine development and we've been engaged in multiple agreements with regard to global research and vaccine development. Indeed, as a government, we have invested $363 million to support various types of global research. At the same time, we've invested more than $3.3 billion in vaccine candidates and currently have four separate agreements for the supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

As we know, there are currently large rollouts taking place internationally, and it's very important that we continue to monitor post-market outcomes to ensure that we're monitoring for safety as these vaccines roll out around the world. It's not yet known fully the effect that the COVID-19 vaccines have on prevention of transmission, and we await this data with bated breath. We've also put almost $2 billion towards the mammoth COVID-19 vaccine rollout to help hospitals, GPs and pharmacies administer the vaccine in coming months.

The Morrison government is otherwise making way for a swift and seamless rollout for the COVID-19 vaccine. For example, we've just passed through the House this afternoon our proposed amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act to enable the secretary of Health to consent to the importation and supply of registered or listed therapeutic goods that do not have their registration or listed number on the label. As I said this morning in my speech, we know the Pfizer vaccine in particular requires minus 70 degrees storage, and that can make it impossible to have the registration number affixed to the label. So it's a small but important change that shows how committed this government is to the smooth rollout and how much detail is required for the mammoth undertaking with regard to vaccination of our population in a safe and effective way but, importantly, in a free and voluntary way.

The vaccine rollout is truly a once-in-a-generation logistical undertaking, perhaps only comparable to war campaigns. It has many important moving parts, which must all come together to ensure its success. The AIR is just one of the many important moving parts that we need to deal with.

It should not be lost on any of us that when the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is delivered it will constitute one of the greatest scientific and humanitarian achievements of human genius. In a little over a year, the world has been able to devise and begin mass production of COVID-19 vaccines. As a medical researcher and public health professor, I cannot tell you the incredible speed with which this has occurred. In fact, I wrote an opinion piece in September last year but was unable to find a recipient to publish it, because I was told by the media they thought it was far too early to be talking about vaccine rollouts. All I was doing was getting the conversation going, but it does show how quickly that this change has occurred, where we're now poised to roll out a number of different safe and effective vaccines across Australia. In a little over a year, we've been able to devise and begin mass production, including—we're about to commence—production and manufacture by CSL in Melbourne, which is a wonderful undertaking to ensure that we provide security for our sovereign risk of mass production of vaccines. We condensed a process that would ordinarily take the better part of a decade. This is truly miraculous, and the men and women who've worked to achieve this deserve every accolade.

The Morrison government knows that in the time of COVID, this is national security. A successful COVID-19 vaccine rollout is only one true key out of this pandemic; it's equally important from a health, economic and societal perspective. That is why the Morrison government is strengthening the vaccine rollout framework, which includes these important amendments to the AIR proposed in this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always delightful to follow the member for Higgins talking about medical matters. I thought we wrote the opinion piece that we couldn't get published, and indeed that was the case.

It's something that I love talking about—immunisation. I was interested today to hear the Prime Minister, when he was giving his eulogy following the death of Doug Anthony, talk about Doug Anthony having had diphtheria as a child and describe diphtheria as 'the pandemic of the age'. It wasn't. Diphtheria is a bacterial infection, and the organisms that cause it are always with us. Every child now has diphtheria immunisation as part of their triple antigen immunisation. It is remarkable that, in a very short space of time, infectious diseases such as diphtheria, polio, tetanus and whooping cough virtually became a thing of the past because of our continuing immunisation program. It is vitally important that we continue with advances in immunisation to prevent our children and our population becoming victims of infectious disease.

Australia has led the world in this. I and, I am sure, the member for Bowman, the member for Higgins and the member for Lyne, David Gillespie, have lived through this in our medical careers. We have seen dramatic changes in medicine due to immunisation, in relatively recent times.

Of course I support this bill, the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. I congratulate the government on bringing it forward.

I really want to convey the message of how important immunisation is and how important it is that we continue with modern advances in immunisation, to provide health protection for all our population. In my medical lifetime, we've virtually eradicated bacterial meningitis because of immunisation against infections with bacteria such as Haemophilus influenzae and pneumococcus and meningococcal infections. And this has occurred in my medical lifetime—indeed, in the last 20 to 30 years. I, as a paediatrician, used to virtually always have a child in our medical ward at Campbelltown who was being treated for bacterial meningitis. In the 1990s, with the development of bacterial immunisations, this has virtually disappeared, which has saved numerous lives and prevented major disability.

Sir Norman Gregg, an Australian eye doctor, was the first doctor in the world to describe congenital rubella, which caused major problems in newborn infants if mothers were infected in the first three months of the pregnancy, with blindness, deafness, intellectual disability, congenital heart disease, growth failure et cetera. It has virtually disappeared from the modern developed world, but we know that rubella is always in the community and, unless we keep up our immunisation, it is going to recur. Recently, Professor Ian Frazer has developed immunisation for the virus that causes cervical cancer, and we hope one day to see a world free of cervical cancer and prevent the deaths and the multiple problems that cervical cancer causes. So Australia has actually led the world. I think we can congratulate ourselves on our past history and our current history of dealing with infectious disease.

This bill, of course, makes it mandatory to record immunisations across the board, but, in particular, initially with the COVID-19 vaccine and flu vaccine, and later with our other vaccinations. Our vaccination rates in our children really lead the developed world, and we need that to continue. Our First Nations people's childhood immunisations are now over 96 per cent, which is pretty remarkable and will prevent a lot of illness and death in our Indigenous population.

We are now improving immunisation availability for our older generation, with immunisations for pneumococcal infection, which causes severe, sometimes fatal, pneumonia, particularly in elderly people. We now have immunisations available for herpes zoster, which in young people causes chickenpox and in older adults causes shingles. So we're improving the availability of immunisation all the time, and this new legislation will improve our records of immunisation, which are very important.

I don't know how many children I've seen whose parents couldn't tell me, up until fairly recently, whether their children's immunisations were up to date when I've asked them. The Australian Immunisation Register has been very important as part of improving parents' ability to have their children immunised and as a record of those immunisations. The point's been made quite adamantly that this is a register of mandatory reporting; it is not mandatory immunisation. However, I believe that this will be a way of further improving our immunisation rates and, in particular, getting our more disadvantaged people to have immunisations that will improve immunisation rates in not just young people but also older people.

This legislation does include penalties for a lack of reporting, and as a health professional I think that is very important. The vast majority of health professionals are very diligent about their recording and reporting of immunisations, but we know there have been instances where that has not happened, and I think it's very important that health professionals are updated on ways of improving their immunisation recording. So I fully support the legislation from that point of view.

I have concerns about some of the data collection and the data companies that are being made data partners for this. I have some concerns about a single booking portal because I think that could be quite difficult for older people. I think this is something that will need to be modified over time, but the data is very important. Our health data is really a valuable asset for future health care, and I was very concerned when the government in 2016 sold off some of our health data, particularly the breast cancer registry, to a private company, Telstra Health. I am concerned that Accenture has been made the data partner for the data collection for our COVID-19 response and for the Immunisation Register; I hope that that will not be privatised in the future.

I think it is absolutely remarkable that we've been able to develop COVID-19 vaccines in such a short period of time and, in particular, the new technology involved in immunisation production, the messenger RNA vaccines. We know that the vaccines we will be getting now will not be the best ones for COVID-19. They will be developed in the future. It does appear that the messenger RNA vaccines are good because they are not only very effective but also easily modifiable. As mutations in the COVID-19 virus occur, it is very likely that new immunisations will need to be developed in the future, and the messenger RNA vaccines appear to be the easiest to modify. Whilst we've apparently got a relatively small number of the Pfizer mRNA vaccines being delivered to Australia, I think that we may need to relook at vaccine availability through the Moderna company, which has a messenger RNA vaccine that doesn't have to be kept at such a cold temperature, and that may be very important for a big country like Australia, particularly for rural and remote communities.

I think the government is still being quite unclear about the vaccine rollout. We need to make sure that we are updated as soon as possible about how the vaccine is going to be rolled out and how GPs, hospitals, rural and remote communities, nursing homes, those with disabilities, those living on the street and other remote Australians are going to be offered the vaccine. We also need to know how pharmacies are going to be supported with the vaccines and how we are going to make sure that the most disadvantaged Australians have easy and early access to the vaccination technology.

My personal view is that we also need to look at how we are going to quarantine people, particularly those who are coming from countries that have a high instance of some of the newer mutations, which may be more infectious, and how we're going to manage them in the future. Many things still need to be made clear. But it is absolutely remarkable that Australia has done so well. I congratulate the government on their science based approach to managing the pandemic. We are now in the next phase, the immunisation phase. It does appear very unlikely that we're going to get herd immunity, because, in the initial steps, we're not immunising children or pregnant women. But we do know that these newer vaccines, both the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine, will be very effective in preventing severe illness. It's very important that we get both vaccines rolled out as soon as we possibly can.

I will be lining up at the first available opportunity to get this vaccine. It is very important that we all do this in as short a time as possible. I have enormous faith in our health system, as I'm sure the member for Bowman, who is here in the chamber today, does as well. Australia has led the world in a whole range of public health projects, from immunisation to child development, to managing a whole range of different health problems, from infectious diseases to the diseases of modern life, the so-called lifestyle diseases. We have led the world, and we'll continue to do so.

The importance of a rapid vaccine rollout means that, within Australia, our borders can be opened more effectively and kept open. We know that the more people coming in from overseas with the virus, the more difficult it is to keep our quarantine systems working well, and that is something that requires a great deal of thought. This year will still be a difficult year in terms of international travel, but vaccination will help to a degree, particularly with those countries that have very low instance of the virus. So it is very important.

I would stress that the vaccination for COVID-19 will not be mandatory. The only thing that will be mandatory will be the reporting and recording of it so that people know who has been vaccinated and who hasn't. This may have some importance in healthcare settings, hospitals and rapid diagnosis of the illness. But it is very important that this is a voluntary vaccine and remains so, and there's bipartisan support for that.

I congratulate the government on many of the things they have done to bring this forward and in managing the COVID-19 epidemic. But there's still much we don't know—and 2021 is not going to be a normal year. We know that there will be things we will learn about the virus; we're all learning as we go. It's very important that people understand that it will not be situation normal for a long period of time. With widespread community vaccination, I'm hopeful that we'll get back to at least a more open society. But, for the time being, pandemic measures are here to stay. It's very important that our community is given as much information as possible about the planning and about what the future is going to be. I commend this bill to the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. I'm very happy to follow Dr Mike Freelander, the member for Macarthur, and another doctor the member for Higgins. They made very sensible contributions following on from the shadow minister for health and ageing, the member for Hindmarsh.

It is just one year ago—a year since the world changed for everyone—that COVID-19 first appeared in Australia, in late January 2020. It is one year—the equivalent of about one week of home schooling, for those who have had the joy of that—but a long time ago. It is obviously a very serious pandemic, and in that time Australians have picked up many new skills, not all of them willingly. The ability to work from home will hold us in good stead for some productivity gains and some family-life balance. Home schooling children is not something I would recommend, as the father of two boys, even though I was a school teacher in another life. We've learnt how to keep our social distance, and as we've heard from our health experts, that 1.5 metres has given us a much better flu season. We've learnt how to wash our hands for at least 20 seconds with soap regularly; how to wear a mask when necessary; how to monitor our health much more than we have perhaps been used to, particularly men, I would suggest; how to have Zoom meetings and the like; and how to hold COVID-safe activities. We've got a bit more to do on COVID-safe activities in terms of making our community strong, but I'm sure that we will get there.

We have been lucky in Australia. We've been lucky that we're an island continent and lucky we've had some great leadership. In Queensland, I've been very glad to see the work of the very capable Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and the health ministers—previously Steven Miles but now the wonderful Yvette D'Ath—and also the Chief Health Officer, the unflappable and always thorough Dr Jeannette Young. They have done an incredible job making difficult calls at tough times, I know from personal experience, making difficult calls to keep all Queenslanders safe. I'd also commend Minister Hunt and the former Chief Medical Officer Dr Brendan Murphy, and all of the Commonwealth officials who have done so much to keep Australians safe. The role of our leaders has been more obvious in the last year than usual, I would suggest. Australians have relied on their guidance and the correct information. Largely, Australians have trusted their state and federal leaders and followed the health advice given to them. We've been a compliant lot, even with the personal sacrifices of not being able to attend funerals, weddings and other family functions, parties and all those sorts of things. We've heard the tennis players here for the Australian Open say that Australia is the envy of the world in its response to COVID-19. As I said, we are a lucky country, perhaps a little bit lucky. It's been a horrible one year on. One year ago Australia was on fire, and that kept away a lot of tourists who perhaps would have been here, and we could perhaps have had a swirl of COVID-19 that would have been an extra challenge. As I said earlier, the professional leadership in the health sector is what I particularly want to call out.

But I will point out my disappointment that some so-called leaders in their communities have been spreading dangerous misinformation. Obviously the chief culprit, as we've seen in the last few days, is the member for Hughes, who seems to have made spreading misinformation an art form, an art form that is dangerous for people. We know that Australians listen to their political representatives, particularly as the mainstream media fracture. We know that they listen to Facebook messages. We expect our political leaders, especially, to know about what is going on. Australians don't expect that their political leaders are being dangerous or careless or are deliberately spreading misinformation. It's especially dangerous during a pandemic, because when people are scared they are tempted to cling to simple falsehoods as a way of making sense of the chaos.

It was especially disappointing that the Prime Minister chose not to condemn the member for Hughes on Monday, when he had an opportunity to do so in front of the press gallery at the National Press Club. The standards you walk past are the standards you accept. All the Prime Minister would say on Monday is that you don't go to Facebook for COVID information and that the member for Hughes was doing a great job. Obviously, when the Prime Minister made that statement, he had his own media people devoted to putting out Facebook messages. In fact, the way that most people have been getting up-to-date information about the ever-changing COVID restrictions is not by waiting for the newspaper but by going to social media. No doubt the people in the electorate of the member for Hughes have been doing that.

In Queensland, the Premier's social media channels have been a great source of information about local cases, because they're immediate. You need to know, 'It was that restaurant.' There was a restaurant that was 100 metres from my office. We needed to know exactly which restaurant was involved and at what time you could have been affected so that the tracing process could take place. We needed to know when the testing centres were open and what the restrictions were. We needed to know all of those things. We needed to get information out quickly. My own social media channels have endeavoured to inform my constituents in Moreton about changes to restrictions in the local area and to provide information about the pandemic as immediately as it has come to hand—accurate information. People should be able to expect that their federal or state representative is giving them credible information. I saw the member for Higgins and the member for Macarthur, both respected doctors, making much the same comment. The member for Higgins particularly spoke about how necessary it is for Facebook information to be accurate. The member for Hindmarsh said much the same thing.

Right before I came into the chamber to speak, I went to the Facebook page of the member for Hughes. This page has 86,000 followers. So 86,000 people are seeing his information directly, and many of them then share that information with their followers or tell their friends about the information—the misinformation—supplied by the member for Hughes. I know that. I am a member of a Facebook group connected to my home town of St George in western Queensland, and they regularly receive this information. A couple of people send this information on like it's the gospel truth, like it's handed down from a health department. Because it's coming from a member of parliament, it must be true. I went to that webpage before I came in here at 5 pm, just half an hour ago, and right now it contains a whole lot of information on hydroxychloroquine and other things. After a couple of days spent talking about misinformation and the Prime Minister huffing and puffing about calling the member for Hughes, that information is still going out to 86,000 people.

Obviously, the member for Hughes's misinformation isn't confined to medical information. After the storming of the Capitol in Washington, the member for Hughes and his mate the member for Dawson—another superspreader of misinformation—were claiming it was a false-flag operation. It was an attack on one of the world's oldest democracies, where people died. As an Australian, I would say it is one of the most important democracies. But that misinformation wasn't condemned by the Prime Minister either. The member for Dawson and the LNP senator Matthew Canavan have also chimed in, supporting the member for Hughes. The member for Dawson has been spreading medical misinformation by sending Queenslanders an open letter addressed to the Queensland Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeannette Young, the most experienced chief health officer in Australia, with incorrect assertions about hydroxychloroquine. Today, on public social media, Senator Canavan was also backing the member for Hughes.

Why won't the Prime Minister do more to pull his team into line? The Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer actually felt the need to comment on the member for Hughes's prolific social media—no doubt paid for by the taxpayer—by saying that he didn't want to give prominence to 'non-scientific ideas'. A vaccine expert has labelled the claims of the member for Hughes as appalling and destructive. When the shadow minister for education had the opportunity to do so this morning, she called out the member for Hughes on his alarming misinformation. The standard of misinformation being spread by the member for Hughes is dangerous. It can cause death to those who follow it. The assertions of the member for Hughes go beyond being misleading; they are getting very close to being unhinged.

Let's look at some of the dangerous assertions he has made. He's accused our chief medical and health officers of 'crimes against humanity'. He's promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, against scientific evidence. He has engaged in conspiracy theories about big pharma, saying that this is all a conspiracy, because the vaccine will make more money for big pharma than his favourite remedy, hydroxychloroquine. He asserted that hydroxychloroquine didn't get approval in Australia as part of some anti-Donald-Trump conspiracy by the TGA and the chief health officers and that it would be approved after the United States election—which it hasn't because there's not enough evidence to support that it works.

I have faith in the TGA. I support the government 100 per cent on having faith in the TGA. It's extraordinary that these are the assertions of a federal member of parliament on his Facebook page right now—someone who is being paid by the taxpayer to represent his community, someone who the Prime Minister actually appointed to the Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources Committee.

We know that vaccines will play an important part in allowing the world to combat and/or live with COVID-19, and that's why the Australian Immunisation Register is so important. I stress again that this is nothing to do with making vaccines mandatory; people still need to make their own choices in consultation with their treating physicians. Making sure Australia understands who has had these vaccines is what this legislation is about.

Without a vaccine, we can't hope to have open borders and the freedom of international travel—something that is crucial to Queensland, the Sunshine State, and particularly to North Queensland, which has been hammered by the lack of international tourists. Vaccines won't be successful if there is not an uptake by the public. We need to give people confidence in our testing processes and, ultimately, in the vaccines that will be available. We need to encourage people to get the vaccine. It is a waste of taxpayer money to spend a fortune on advertising campaigns when a member of parliament is spreading unscientific misinformation.

The Prime Minister, after question time today, forced into a corner, finally had to acknowledge the dangerous rhetoric of the member for Hughes—and I do commend him for that. Unfortunately, I don't think the Prime Minister has gone nearly far enough. As I said, at five o'clock today this information was still being pumped out to the Australian public. The misinformation is still on the member for Hughes's social media. He hasn't taken it down. It is still misleading people. The Prime Minister should demand that the dangerous misinformation—and there is a tonne of it—should be taken down from his social media channels immediately. That's what a true leader would do.

I also take this opportunity to thank the wonderful researchers that we have here in Australia for their tireless work during this pandemic. We really appreciate your efforts. In particular, I want to mention the scientists at the University of Queensland, who came oh so close, and some of the other Brisbane laboratories. I won't go through all of them. I know some of those scientists and I thank them for their incredible efforts.

I support this bill and Labor supports this bill because it's crucial that the government's broader COVID-19 response be based on science. It needs to defend science and it needs to actively counter the misinformation campaigns coming from the government's own ranks that are putting at risk the health of all Australians.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the contributions from both sides in this important debate on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. This is an opportunity to talk about vaccinations and immunisation schedules more broadly. Australia has a unique record worldwide for high levels of immunisation coverage. The great work by ATAGI to approve vaccinations in a prompt fashion, fund some of the most expensive vaccines in the world and make them available rapidly is something Australia can be truly proud of. So my intervention today is necessarily brief.

I am a medical practitioner who has worked to introduce new drugs into this country, including, remarkably, the three non-viral treatments have been explored for COVID-19. I led the first trial of azithromycin in Australia after a brief series of case studies in donovanosis introduced that drug to Australia back in 1992. So I know very well the issues in introducing a new drug as a treatment. Azithromycin is now a breakthrough and recommended standard treatment for an ocular disease. Of course, we know that science moves carefully, cautiously and slowly. The observation I simply want to make today—and I do depart from some of my medical colleagues in this respect—is that continually screaming at contrary views may feel good but it won't make them go away. My belief is that it actually amplifies them. It is important to put a line in the sand about the importance of science, but you aren't going to succeed in muzzling people in this chamber. In a vibrant, strong civil democracy you need to accept that there are contrary views. There were contrary views on Australia Day last week. They are not going to be muzzled. Those views are here to stay, and I support both sides.

On immunisation, you are right: there is a scientific consensus that brought this great nation to where it is today. There is an antiscientific undercurrent and it needs to be called out, but that needs to be done respectfully and it needs to be done with evidence. What I am frustrated about is the reluctance by the other side to engage the evidence. If those opposite sense something is misinformation, spell it out in detail. Don't accuse someone with broad slander in an effort to silence, because I am just telling you—through the chair—they will not go away. They are not going to go away. I can tell you that someone who has a page of 86,000 will rapidly have 96,000 after a completely unnecessary exchange in this chamber. Unlike the Labor member, I speak as someone who has worked on approving new breakthrough treatments for this country.

I will tell you the information that the Labor MP doesn't have. I know the percentage of Australians who are going to accept COVID vaccination when it becomes available. It is around 75 per cent of young Australians in their 20s and around 75 per cent of Australians over the age of 60, but it falls to around 60 per cent for Australians in their 40s and 50s. There is a very significant core of Australia in that age group that has genuine reservations about the COVID-19 vaccine. That needs to be addressed clearly and with information, not with broad and personal attacks on people with whom you don't agree. If you want to attack someone, attack them with the science. That means reading scientific papers.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am being heckled by a Labor MP who has never read a peer-reviewed scientific paper from start to finish in her short career. She needs to read more science.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hold a sec, everyone. The member for Bowman will just pause for a moment. The member for Kingston seeks the call.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to say that the member for Bowman is misleading the House. I have actually published in the Journal of Applied Psychology a randomised control trial looking at eyewitness identification, so he can withdraw his mistruths, because he has misled the House.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member has made a point, but it is not a point of order in the debate. The member for Bowman has the call.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept the interjection and, yes, she has published one paper, so that is great. Now she needs to read more and incorporate them in the debate rather than make personal attacks. The point is: if you wish to place someone on a pedestal and engage in attacks that don't have a basis in science, you need to compete against antiscientific ideas with scientific debate, and you are not doing that. You are personally attacking people, and that is why these efforts will be futile. If you feel it is information, establish it and make the case, but respect that there is a large proportion of Australians with differing views. If you continue to regard them as deplorables, you will continue to struggle to have high levels of vaccination. Our job is to build consensus through science and through respectfully opposing these views, not attempting to silence people. All you do is feed the fire and make the problem worse.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with some of the contribution just made by the member for Bowman. To some extent, I agree with the core argument that I think he was just trying to put—that when we are faced with people expressing antiscientific and false information and putting it out into the community then it is incumbent on people who have been elected to this parliament as leaders of the community to address that. As I understand it, that was at the core of the member's proposition. That is absolutely correct; unfortunately, until recently it hasn't been done enough. But where I do take issue with the member for Bowman on is his illustrating his own point—that personally attacking others without knowing what you're talking about is a bad way to go about persuading people—by personally attacking a member of the chamber without knowing what he was talking about.

I will return to what I intended to speak about in my contribution, and that is the way debate about the vaccine has caused me to reflect on a theme that I've spoken about a number of times in this chamber, as have many of my colleagues. It is a theme that I know is pretty dear to the heart of the member for Warringah. It's about what makes good politics and good politicians and how people should behave. To some extent, it flows from the slightly contradictory contribution of the member for Bowman. But first I want to say a few things about immunisation, because the contributions before some of the most recent ones were thoughtful and considered contributions by members of this parliament from both sides of the chamber, Liberal and Labor, about the importance of science and, in particular, the importance of immunisation. They were proud contributions about the world-leading role that Australia has played for many, many decades in the field of public health.

I often come into this chamber to listen to Dr Freelander, the member for Macarthur, make contributions on legislation and issues that relate to the medical profession and public health. When he raises concerns and when he praises legislation, you can be sure that his is a thoughtful and valid contribution that comes from someone who has not only had extensive previous experience in the medical profession but continues to practise while he also serves his community and this nation. I want to take this opportunity to adopt a lot of what Dr Freelander said, because I certainly couldn't say it any better. I also want to do what the member for Macarthur did and put on the record that I will be taking the COVID vaccine as soon as I am able to and as soon as I appropriately reach my place in the priority queue. I have been vaccinated for the flu. Because of my particular health circumstances, I've also had the pneumonia vaccine. I've spoken to my GP about suitability of the COVID vaccine for me with my particular medical circumstances. She's assured me I can take it, so I will be taking it.

When I have spoken on social media or publicly about the need to call out conspiracy theories and to assure the Australian public that Australia's TGA process and our vaccine rollout are safe and robust, I've been asked a number of times, 'Well, would you take the vaccine then?' I want to make it abundantly clear that the answer is yes. Of course it's yes. This legislation makes the register mandatory, but it does not make having the vaccination mandatory. I join with the Minister for Health, the shadow minister for health and every reasonable-thinking, science-believing person in this chamber and encourage all Australians to have the vaccine. It's not a magic bullet. It's not going to mean that, as a community and as a country, we are all safe from COVID, that the borders are all going to open so we can travel overseas and that some of the things that we're all desperately waiting for will happen. But it is a really important step.

People that are 10, 15, 20 years younger than me probably have no idea what polio is. But a former leader of the Labor Party had polio as a child. Effectively, it doesn't exist, certainly in this country. I remember as a young child having a mumps reaction and having to go to hospital for an operation. I had to be put in isolation because my sister had rubella, or German measles. That effectively doesn't happen in this country anymore—I was going to say it's a few decades, but it's quite a few decades since I was a child—because of vaccines. It's really important that the sentiments that have been expressed by government, opposition and crossbench members of this place continue to be expressed. It's a significant public health issue for COVID but also more broadly. I endorse the rollout of the vaccine and endorse the statements of the shadow minister for health. Of course we want to see this vaccine rolled out as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. We want to make sure that the most vulnerable get access first. We want to make sure that Australians know that the rollout is happening in a methodical way and that doctors, pharmacists and staff at nursing homes and disability support services are assured that the rollout of the vaccine will be efficient.

I hope that there are four million vaccines rolled out by the end of March, but I also hoped that the rollout would have started in January, as the Minister for Health said in September last year, and we haven't seen that happen. I caution the government: every time you say something is going to happen and it doesn't, it adds to the feelings of concern in the general public and undermines a little bit the faith in the government and its ability to roll out this really important public health measure. It's important that the information given, not just from random backbenchers but from the Minister for Health and the Prime Minister, is as accurate as it can be every time and is about public policy and not about politics, because this should not be about politics.

I want to finish my contribution by reflecting on how the debate we've been engaged in for quite some time now—and really, unfortunately, we appear to have inherited from America some of the really dangerous trends that emerged under the Trump regime—can go to undermining the community's faith in politics, democracy and government. We know that, before the COVID pandemic hit, trust in politics and trust in government had declined disastrously over the previous two decades and less than half of the Australian public expressed trust in politics and politicians. We really needed to work hard to regain that trust. There are a lot of really decent people in this parliament who want to do that.

Because of the way during the pandemic the state governments and the federal government have cooperated—apart from perhaps the way the federal government talked about Victoria for a while, but we'll put that aside—there has been a return of trust. The most recent surveys and polling suggest that Australians are now expressing a trust in government and politicians that hasn't been seen for a long time. One of the really important challenges that we as parliamentarians face—and it doesn't matter whether we are in government or opposition—is to gently hold and retain that trust. Perhaps one of the silver linings of one of the most disastrous periods in Australia's recent history is that we have an opportunity to gently hold, retain and build that trust. Part of doing that is the way in which we individually as parliamentarians and as political parties conduct ourselves.

In his contribution the member for Moreton talked about how he had used social media during the COVID lockdowns to inform his community of the new restrictions and the new measures. That's absolutely what I as the member for Dunkley did. I know that it's absolutely what most members of this parliament did. When we couldn't go out to see our constituents, when there were no community events and when our constituents couldn't come to us, social media—whether we like it or not—became a lifeline of communication. And those of us who lived through weeks and weeks and months and months of lockdown—as did our communities—know that people were on social media in numbers and at a volume that they weren't before, because that's where they went to get information, because it was spontaneous.

So those of us who had thought about it and wanted to be part of building trust and serving our communities treated our social media in much the same way that we would treat this parliament. We tried to treat it with respect. We tried to put out information that wasn't political, that wasn't conspiracy theories, that was grounded in fact, that came from the federal government, the Chief Health Officer, the state government, the Chief Medical Officer, and we wanted to do our best to reassure our communities and give them the right information.

I can't speak on behalf of my colleagues in this place, but I can say that as the member for Dunkley I know that my community valued that, because they tell me almost every day. Now that we are out and about, people come up to me and say thank you for that. They would be saying it on Facebook at the time and sending emails. That was about building that trust and holding it gently in my hands because I've got the privilege of doing it. That's why members of this place using their Facebook pages to put out what aren't contrary views but are, as the member for Bowman described it, antiscientific undercurrents, using their Facebook pages at a time of fragility, a time when people were scared, a time when people were sitting looking at social media just to try to work out what was going on in the world, as a means of building their own profile by exploiting the way those people felt, is wrong.

Calling that out isn't, with respect to the member for Bowman, personal attacks on individuals. It's hard to say that this behaviour is wrong without naming the individuals who are behaving in that way. That's why I have called out the member for Hughes and others and said it has to stop. That's why I asked the Prime Minister to ask for it to stop: because of the immediate urgent need for it to stop, and for public health reasons, but also to be part of a better politics and a better parliament.

That's why I think suggestions that have come from my colleague the member for Warringah and others about codes of conduct for parliamentarians, why training for parliamentarians in ethics and understanding that we have competing roles and some of them are party political, some of them are local political, but a big part of it is being a parliamentarian and serving the public good, and knowing how to balance them and when to balance them, is really important. This is our opportunity, and legislation like this gives us the opportunity to talk about why immunisation is important. We have to grab it and leave a legacy for the future.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. We live in a wonderful country in Australia. All of us know that, but it's during this pandemic that people have a new-found appreciation of what they knew in their DNA. What a wonderful lottery we won when we were born or came to this country, because not only do we have the freedom of speech, association and travel—up until recently—we were gifted a wonderful public health system, clean water, and also a really good vaccination program.

A bit like the member for Dunkley, I remember lining up as a schoolkid getting jabs in the arm or getting a polio vaccine on a little spoon under the tongue. That was my first experience. When you look at the history of vaccination, it was one of the great public health initiatives around the world. So many illnesses that create great morbidity and suffering and even death have been modified by it.

With the pandemic, we've obviously had to ramp up a lot of systems, and utilising and improving on the existing Australian Immunisation Register is part of that response. As you know, there is a register that exists. Most people do have their vaccination history recorded on it, because it is a very handy public health measure to have both for your own personal medical history and for efficacy of producing herd immunity and protecting everyone from whatever the infectious disease is. With the COVID vaccine rollout, it's very important that we do maximise the efficacy of this and get all the providers of the vaccine to record it in this register so we can keep a track of who has been vaccinated and levels of vaccination to judge response, efficacy and all those sorts of things.

It's really important that people understand this data has been collected for some time. There is a very secure computer system that the government controls, and individuals have their privacy maintained with this system. It's not going to change. If we want to go to your immunisation history statement, you can print it out from Medicare online, myGov or the Express Plus Medicare mobile app. So it's controlled by you—only you and the government controlled computer record system. If you do not want that being in contact with you and you don't want lots of correspondence, you can inform the system. All the disclosure is at your control.

There are allowances in this legislation to make sure that the vaccine providers—not the manufacturers but the people delivering the service, whether it's going to be through a pharmacy, a hospital, a general practice or an outpatient clinic—record the vaccination, because, as you know, in the pandemic there will be two vaccinations. All the vaccines that are being rolled out in Australia require two injections.

So there's no ambiguity, I might say a few words about the current situation—lest I say, not controversy. I want to reiterate: one of the benefits I bring to this House and this parliament is using the knowledge from my extensive medical career, because a lot of this is very technical stuff. Vaccines have a long history of delivering massive public health benefits, and this vaccine program will do the same for the nation. Everything about this disease is evolving at such a rapid rate, but I want my constituents and my colleagues, both on the opposition benches and here, to know that I'll be lining up for my vaccine, like the member for Dunkley. When my turn comes, I'll be accepting a vaccine. Some of you are probably a whole lot healthier than me, so I'll be really welcoming receiving the vaccine. That is the best thing.

We are blessed that we've had a great response. We controlled our borders, which has protected us in a way that other countries weren't able to be. We've got a wonderful public health system—with contact tracing, managing outbreaks and getting our economy going again—and the vaccine program will be part of that. This bit of legislation is improving our existing systems, but it's important that when people get the vaccine they make sure it's recorded. You'll get the info when you're in hospital or when you're sick at other times in the years hence. It'll always be there for you to check and for your GP to see on your My Health Record and know what you've had. I commend this bill to the House.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, I would like to start by thanking the people of Warringah and the Northern Beaches for their amazing hard work and sacrifice in holding at bay and in check so quickly the outbreak that broke out around Christmas time. I do acknowledge how hard that was and the sacrifice that came, especially for our local businesses, and I do continue to advocate for better support for those businesses, but this was necessary. I was so incredibly proud of the level of testing, the level of compliance and how hard everyone in the Northern Beaches and Warringah worked to keep that outbreak in check. I would also like to thank the health minister for responding to my calls to liaise with me in relation to having more testing centres. I think that clearly translated into high testing rates and being able to work together on issues of concern as they came up in the community.

I'd like to speak on the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. This is really important legislation at this turning point in Australia in dealing with the health crisis of COVID. The main point of the bill is to create a requirement for recognised vaccination providers to report to the Australian Immunisation Register information relating to vaccinations they administer and vaccines they are notified about that were given outside Australia. It's vital that we know who has been vaccinated, especially in circumstances of limited availability of vaccines as we are seeing emerge globally in response to COVID-19. Currently there's no statutory mechanism by which the Commonwealth can require vaccination providers to report vaccines administered. Vaccination providers are encouraged at the moment to report all vaccines administered to the AIR; however, as reporting is voluntary, not all vaccines administered are reported, and it is really important this legislation amends that situation.

Reporting to the AIR is maintained at high levels, and the data entered is sufficiently reliable for the administration of childhood immunisations due to a number of existing policy and program settings which encourage reporting. I know it's been some years, but I'm of the generation with the blue book for our children and the regular trips for immunisation. But it has seen the drop of so many illnesses and the protection of our children, so it really does reinforce how lucky we are in Australia to have such a strong vaccination program.

Records of vaccinations for teenagers and adults are less reliable, and that is where it becomes so crucial for COVID. Given the significant cost of public vaccinations, improving record keeping by mandating reporting of vaccinations is both medically and financially prudent. This bill will introduce a requirement for those who administer vaccinations to report vaccinations for COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations from 1 March 2021 and all other national immunisation programs from 1 July this year. This bill will introduce civil penalties for providers of vaccines who don't comply with reporting requirements. It is so important that we have a high uptake of the vaccine.

Last month I conducted a public online event with one of my esteemed constituents from Warringah, Professor Mary-Louise McLaws. She's a professor of epidemiology, healthcare infection and infectious disease controls at the University of New South Wales, and she stressed very clearly the importance of a high uptake of vaccination in the population. These vaccines are not 100 per cent foolproof; they require a high level of uptake so that we multiply and maximise their benefit.

It is concerning that yesterday Newspoll released a poll that showed there were about 75 per cent who planned to get the vaccine, but it did still leave 25 per cent of those questioned who indicated they would not. So clear messaging matters. We need to influence the 25 per cent. The data from the government indicated that the goal was to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of Australians, which means we need to influence that 25 per cent. Facts matter, and it's important that as parliamentarians we provide the right information to our constituents. I urge the people of Warringah: if you have any concerns about the vaccine, go to your health professionals; get health professionals' advice in respect of it. That was something that Professor Mary-Louise McLaws stressed very clearly. It is really important that people turn to their health professionals for that information.

There's been a raging debate about members of the backbench disseminating false information. I can only reiterate my call for there to be a higher professional standard for members of parliament. Information and facts matter. We saw in the aftermath of the US election how far misinformation can lead people. In that sense, whilst I support freedom of speech, freedom of speech comes with responsibility. So it is important. Facts matter.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all members who spoke on this important bill, the Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Bill 2020. The Australian government is committed to providing all Australians with access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines as soon as available. A safe and effective vaccine available globally will dramatically improve health outcomes and societal wellbeing, and facilitate economic recovery. Mandatory reporting to the Australian Immunisation Register, the AIR, will enable the monitoring of immunisation coverage and administration, which is key to ensuring vaccination course completion, as well as assisting with any adverse event reporting. This bill will ensure the AIR is a complete and reliable national dataset, and it will deliver improved reporting to the AIR to better inform vaccination projections, purchasing, delivery and program performance, and analyses of vaccine effectiveness and safety.

While the government strongly supports immunisation and will run a strong campaign to encourage vaccination, it is not mandatory and individuals may choose not to vaccinate. There may, however, be circumstances where the Australian government and other governments may introduce border entry or re-entry requirements that are conditional on proof of vaccination.

This bill will benefit the health of Australians through more-complete reporting of vaccinations. Over time, it will increase vaccination coverage rates and the effectiveness of vaccination programs, and support the health system by informing policy for the NIP and service delivery at the local level.

On behalf of the health minister, I would like to thank key stakeholders and the broader public for the valuable feedback they provided during the public consultation. That helped inform the development of this bill. Once again, I thank members for their important contributions on the bill. I commend it to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.