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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 191 ..

MR WOOD: I hope that it does not become quite as agonising as that report was. I was the chair of the Social Policy Committee at the time. I can tell you that it was long and laboured and bitterly fought. You have similarities. With fluoride, as with this, you have the overwhelming weight of professional and scientific advice saying "fluoride", or saying "immunisation", and, contrary to that, a relatively small number of people, passionately concerned about it and opposed to it, who can, as they did with fluoride in some circumstances, make suggestions that there might be some problems. So, there is a great similarity; but I know that, under Mr Osborne's wise guidance as chair, this will be done expeditiously and we will not have some of the prolonged arguments in committee that we had on that last occasion.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.07): When we start talking about immunisation, we can get off the track very quickly; and I think that has happened already in this debate. Mr Osborne made the comment - and he is right - that the target set for immunisation in Australia is 95 per cent; that our ABS levels for 1995 were 67 per cent in the ACT; and that the ACT had the highest immunisation rate in Australia. They sound quite interesting figures. Apparently, some 33 per cent of parents have chosen not to have their children immunised, for whatever reason. That is actually not correct in the ACT.

The real issue here is what parents actually do. There is a small group of parents who choose not to have their children immunised, for all sorts of reasons. There are no problems with that, if it is less than 5 per cent. Ninety-five per cent is the level we need, to ensure that we have what is called herd immunity. That means that there are enough people in the community who are immunised to stop an outbreak of a particular condition. So, a small number of people can choose, for whatever reason, not to be immunised.

It is fascinating to see what the actual figures are for various age groups in the ACT. At three months, 90 per cent of children in the ACT are now immunised. So, 90 per cent of parents are choosing to have their children immunised, are making that decision, which is actually very high. But what happens then? At eight months - once you have gone through those first immunisations - that has significantly reduced. We are down to about 67 or 70 per cent. So, what is showing is that parents are making the decision to do it at those first levels, where you have a little baby and you take it along to the clinic. Because they are going to the doctor or the community health centre regularly, parents are choosing to have their child immunised. Often in the ACT mums go back to work, the other children get in the way, and it all becomes more difficult. They are not following up. If every one of those parents who started to get their child immunised - that 90 per cent - followed all the way through, we would not have a problem, or the problem would be very small.

One of the issues is whether immunisation is a good thing or a bad thing. But that is actually a very second-rung issue here, because it is an issue for only a very small number of people.

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