Page 906 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 22 March 2017
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and not to discourage children from attending child care or school. That is a very important point for a very important group of potentially vulnerable children and families.
Before concluding today, I move the amendment circulated in my name to Mrs Kikkert’s motion:
Omit all words after (1), substitute:
“(1) notes that:
(a) there has been long-standing bi-partisan support for Australia’s immunisation program which provides a safe and efficient way to prevent the spread of many diseases that cause hospitalisation, serious ongoing health conditions and sometimes death;
(b) since the introduction of vaccination for children in Australia in 1932, deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases have fallen by 99 percent, despite a threefold increase in the Australian population over that period;
(c) the ACT’s current childhood immunisation coverage rates for 1, 2 and 5 year olds are 95, 92 and 94 percent respectively, which is higher than the national average;
(d) the former Federal Minister for Health, Sussan Ley, wrote to the ACT Minister for Health on 22 December 2016 commending the ACT’s efforts to improve immunisation, noting that the ACT had achieved all four vaccine performance benchmarks, and releasing a reward payment of $120 718; and
(e) there is significant effort by the ACT Government’s Health Protection Service to educate parents about the benefits of immunisation; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) support in-principle the implementation of a ‘No Jab No Play’ policy to prevent unvaccinated children (without medical exemptions) from enrolling in the Territory’s childcare centres;
(b) continue to strongly argue for a nationally-consistent approach to immunisation in concert with all jurisdictions and that this be underpinned by a properly funded and universally accessible national immunisation program; and
(c) ensure that any changes to national and state or territory policy on immunisation policy and practice address the needs of a small minority of children who for reasons of disadvantage are not immunised.”.
I say again that I am pleased that in the ACT our immunisation rates are very high, particularly in some of our youngest age groups. In saying this, I reiterate that we can do better and would like to remind the community about the importance of immunisation, which has repeatedly been demonstrated to be one of the most effective
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