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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Wednesday, 31 March 2004) . . Page.. 1413 ..

Paragraph 4 has gone; that was Ms Dundas’s amendment. I do not know if No 5—“acknowledges a large number of organisations...”—is okay. I just asked Ms MacDonald whether she had listed the number of organisations, and she said she had, but I did not hear that. I am not totally comfortable with that. Unless she speaks again to explain what the organisations are, I have some concerns about supporting that.

Mr Smyth’s new paragraph 6 acknowledging that other organisations are not in support of this is interpreted by Ms MacDonald to mean that they are not in support of vaccination of all individuals because they are concerned about those who may have allergic reactions or have a febrile condition, or whatever. That is not my understanding of what those words mean. I thought that this motion was about a free vaccine being available to all Australian children, and I thought that he was saying that these two organisations were not in support of that. I would like clarification from Mr Smyth about what the words “vaccination of all individuals” mean. I assume it does not mean people who are allergic. That is obvious.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (12.25): I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

MR SMYTH: I will address the concerns of members, working in reverse order, with Ms Tucker’s first. Paragraph 6 is about a general concern from the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand that, in general, not all people require this; it is not about those groups of individuals who are obviously allergic to it. Ms Tucker’s interpretation was correct and, unfortunately, Ms MacDonald’s was not.

On paragraph 5, I have some concerns about saying “a large number of organisations” and listing two. I can live with “a large number” if that makes Ms MacDonald feel good, but the jury is out. I was simply trying to say that the jury is out on this. We should not, with a small amount of knowledge and an hour’s debate, suddenly determine things that we cannot possibly know are true or false. It is just being cautious and saying that there are some in favour, and there are also some who are against it.

My amendment 3, to delete paragraph 2, is not to gut the motion. If the motion is about attacking the federal government, then that is just politics—go for it. But I thought the motion was about getting a better health outcome for young Australians. At this stage, the federal government has not said that they would not implement the council’s recommendations. They are still deciding. Ms Tucker has checked with the federal government as well. So, for the sake of accuracy, paragraph 2 needs to go. It is not true.

Paragraph 1 must be amended. As Ms Tucker has also pointed out, the NHMRC has not actually recommended that the vaccine be free to all Australian children. Again for the sake of accuracy, my amendment calls on the federal government to consider quickly the recommendations of the NHMRC regarding pneumococcal vaccine. I think that is also a reasonable stance. It sends a message to the federal government that we as a jurisdiction are interested in pneumococcal and that we want something to happen quickly. But if, as Mr Abbott’s office told my office this morning, we accept and have to spend not 60 million but hundreds of millions of dollars to implement this, then we should do it wisely.

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