Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Wednesday, 31 March 2004) . . Page.. 1409 ..

You then have to balance up the issues. If the problem is concentrated in Central Australia and it is Aboriginal children under five and non-Aboriginal children under the age of two, perhaps the money might be better spent concentrating on where the disease is most prevalent and getting the better effect there, with a general education program for the rest of the country in those areas where the effect is not being felt.

That is why the motion as written has a good intent but we need to modify it. I have circulated some amendments, which we will deal with after Ms Dundas’s amendment. The net has other sites such as The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand—this was downloaded this morning—which states that “analysis of the data available does not support a public health strategy to vaccinate all individuals in a particular at-risk group” and that “clinicians should consider vaccination for individuals in the following groups.” It then lists quite a large group of different people in different conditions. I address one of the concerns that Ms Dundas has. According to The Thoracic Society of Australia, the vaccine is safe and can be administered at the same time as the influenza vaccine. It does go on to say though with vaccine safety that there might be minor adverse affects occurring in up to 50 per cent of primary vaccinations, but serious complications occur in less than one per cent of cases.

Apparently it is a good vaccine. It is reliable and it is recommended for use, but it is not being recommended for widespread use. If we look at the motion we see that it calls on the federal government to accept the recommendation of the NHMRC and provide pneumococcal vaccine free to all Australian children. We have just heard from Ms Tucker that that might be incorrect. So before this motion can be passed paragraph one will need to be amended. I have just circulated another amendment that deletes all words after “and provide”. It would call on the federal government to accept the recommendation of the National Health and Medical Research Council in regard to this.

Paragraph 2 is unfortunate because the federal government has not made a decision not to implement the council’s recommendation. As is seen on the website, the funding level for pneumococcal vaccine is still under consideration. We need to give them some time at least to do the work properly rather than just race in.

I think paragraph 3 is fine as it stands. I think we all recognise the severity. Ms Dundas’s amendment states that this Assembly “notes the health and financial benefits gained...”. A case has not been made in this debate this morning and I have not seen a written case that says there are health and financial benefits to be gained by providing the vaccine free to all Australians.

This is about how you develop your strategy and what is your target. If there is an enormous at-risk group—and there appears to be—then let us put all the resources into them. If there is a broad at-risk group that extends across the country, maybe we need to consider immunising all children, and indeed all Australians. If that is the case—I have not seen a case. Based on some of Mr Corbell’s analysis yesterday of how much it will cost to run a forensic unit in the ACT prison—if it ever gets built—I would not trust much that he says when it comes to analysis of health and/or financial benefits.

Paragraph 5 is I assume a correct statement. There are some organisations in support of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s recommendation. But I would add a

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .