Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting this motion. On Monday, the report from the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee was tabled in this Senate. The committee report includes the recommendation that the Australian government review the COVID-19 vaccine claim scheme and consider the merits of a national no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme as part of the National Immunisation Strategy. We had that recommendation from the committee tabled just three days ago.

This motion before us seeks a referral to the community affairs committee for another inquiry for Senators Rennick and Antic to pursue their agenda regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and the vaccine program. And we saw that in Senator Rennick's dissenting report from the committee inquiry, where he says:

… the argument that there was a public health emergency—

associated with COVID-19—

is overblown. Covid-19 was of little risk to healthy people of working age population. There was no justification to roll out a novel vaccine that had next to no testing, especially longitudinal on people that had very little risk from Covid.

The government does not feel that we should feed into this irresponsible view and, in considering this motion, we should consider the remarks of the committee report, which found:

The benefits of immunisation are vital in protecting the health of the Australian population. The committee is unanimous in its view that passage of this bill would have a severely detrimental effect on Australia's future capacity to manage any future pandemic, and consequently on the health of the population. This is because Australia's pandemic response would be inhibited by an inability to source and secure the timely provision of life-saving vaccines in an emergency by a prohibition on the granting of indemnities.

The committee then says:

… it is clear to the committee that the granting of an indemnity for legal risk in an emergency does not compromise the efficacy and robustness of the vaccine assurance, monitoring, and regulatory processes undertaken by the—

TGA. It goes on to say:

… the committee considers it incumbent on government to ensure that any vaccine injury claims scheme offers timely, easily accessed, and adequate compensation to persons suffering vaccine injury. Further, the committee considers it prudent to take seriously any risk of increased vaccine hesitancy associated with the view that the COVID-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme, or indeed any vaccine compensation scheme, is overly onerous. With new strains of COVID-19 continuing to emerge and the COVID-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme scheduled to end on 30 September 2024, the committee considers it appropriate to review the COVID-19 Vaccine Claims Scheme and consider the merits of a National no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme as part of the National Immunisation Strategy.

As this report was tabled on Monday, the recommendation will be considered by the government before we provide our response and there is no need for another inquiry by the community affairs committee.