Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to amendments circulated on sheet 7797.

The genesis of this amendment is the information that was presented at the Senate inquiry, where the Department of Human Services wrote: 'In accordance with the phased expansion of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register into a whole-of-life Australian Immunisation Register, a range of improvements will be implemented to the register's functions and operations. This includes new functionality to enable providers to correct errors online through the Australian immunisation register secure site, such as correction of an incorrect dose number or, indeed, an incorrect vaccine recorded.' This will begin to be implemented in September 2017.

That is of significant concern to us because the decision to withdraw someone's support, that is child care rebate, family tax benefit A supplement, child care benefit, is entirely dependent on the data that is listed in the Australian Immunisation Register. If we have an acknowledgement from the Department of Human Services that there are some flaws currently within the system—and we know there are because, for example, there is no capacity to go online and directly make alterations to dose numbers, or indeed if an incorrect vaccine has been recorded—then somebody can have their support payments withdrawn on the basis of that incorrect information. That is concerning. I just cannot understand why we would have a scheme that is reliant upon quality data to see who is and who is not fully vaccinated if the systems that support that are not going to be fully operational until late 2017. That is absolutely critical.

Again, restating our support for immunisation: we do strongly support measures that will increase our immunisation coverage, but we do believe that if we are going to introduce measures as drastic as those that have been proposed here in this bill, that remove support and payments from individuals on the basis of a database that may be inaccurate, then that has the potential to cause very serious problems.

This amendment addresses that specific issue by delaying the start date of the legislation until 1 January 2018, when data systems are ready to provide confidence that the immunisation data is accurate and that providers are resourced to undertake an extensive history and checking of the information. It allows consumers and health professionals who are using the Australian Immunisation Register secure site to correct errors online. It is about ensuring confidence in the systems; again noting how important it is that accurate data is used if we are going to take measures as drastic as the removal of these support payments.