Page 2537 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR HUMPHRIES (4.02): Madam Speaker, I would like to make a contribution to this debate. I understand that while I was away there was a disturbing instance of a member of the Assembly talking about the effects or the possible effects of immunisation on young children, in particular drawing attention to a supposed connection between vaccinations, immunisation and the SID syndrome. I think in this debate already, which I followed while upstairs, there has been some criticism of that position, and I would certainly endorse that criticism. I forget who it was who said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - it may have been Voltaire - but in some sense that applies to this place. We have within these walls 17 people who between them have the capacity to make decisions on behalf of the Territory, often on the basis of a relatively limited body of knowledge, notwithstanding the 17 sets of experience which sit around this room. There is enormous danger that limited knowledge on the part of politicians can result in quite extraordinarily disastrous results for the broader community. That is particularly true in areas of extremely technical information such as medicine.
It is, in my view, extremely important that members of the Assembly, members of all parliaments, listen very carefully to the weight of scientific opinion and evidence before they make decisions which are properly the preserve of areas of medical science. There is always, of course, the question of philosophy, perhaps the philosophy of treatment, the philosophy of medical sciences advancement, for example, in areas like surrogacy and so on, where politicians, just as the community more broadly, have the right to make some philosophical or even moral decisions. But when we are talking about the general health of the community, areas where a high degree of expertise is necessary both to sift and to understand the wealth of information available, it is extremely important that we act on the best advice available. That advice, of course, will be the advice of people who have worked and practised in these areas. I hope that we will be very quick to resist the temptation to make decisions rashly, based on uncertain evidence.
When I was Minister for Health I suggested that we should consider the question of compulsory immunisation in our schools as a way of ensuring that those people who make choices based on reasons which are less than sound - for example, laziness or ignorance or an argument about inconvenience - do not allow their children to be put at risk. There is still very much debate about whether that should be the kind of way in which we, as a community, ensure that a high degree of immunity from killing diseases is achieved. It may be, Madam Speaker, that ultimately we do need to examine some system whereby it is compulsory to opt in, so to speak, unless good reasons are presented to opt out. That is not quite a compulsory system, but it is certainly one that compels all parents to make an active choice about what will happen with their children's health and whether their children are immunised or not.
I also take the point raised by Ms Szuty and Mr Moore that it is essential for us to continue to examine very carefully the body of evidence that is produced for our benefit from the medical community, to see that we are up to date and capable of reading the information that is coming to us in an accurate fashion. It does not excuse us from taking the most active profile we can to protect the health of young people. Undoubtedly, recent outbreaks of certain sorts of diseases among young people, even here in the ACT, have given us encouragement, a reminder, to ensure that we do not allow these questions to fall onto the backburner merely because they have not presented a serious problem for some time.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .