Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As is typical of the member for Lalor, she has a very bad memory gap in debating the National Health Amendment (Immunisation) Bill 2006. She talks about the issues of today but forgets the circumstances that existed as to immunisation when the Australian people put the Labor Party on the opposition benches. In 1996 this Commonwealth government’s expenditure on immunisation was $13 million; today it is $285 million. Whilst I am one who says that you do not measure excellence by expenditure, I want to remind the House of why that expenditure was so low in the years leading up to 1996. The reason is the Labor Party did not approve of immunisation. They listened to a typical minority group who were associated with some of the areas from which Labor required preferences. They listened to a lobby group that opposed immunisation, and the best way that they could respond to that group was to fail to fund it. They removed the money quietly: they never advertised, they never made speeches and they never did anything to encourage the parents and elderly within Australia to take the advantages that immunisation provided. It was not until Minister Wooldridge, having recognised the extreme risk to our community of this negative policy, stood up in this parliament and raised the issue, raised public awareness and, in fact, took a measure of punishment—as these things are not necessarily vote winners—and told parents that they would lose certain welfare entitlements if they did not get their kids immunised that we turned this issue around.

I am looking, as I did last night, at the amendments proposed by the opposition. They are all negative. There is nothing in them that says we should hurry up and put the vaccine for cervical cancer through the PBAC. Instead we get a story about one vacant position. As I pointed out last night, these bodies that give advice to government, particularly on the efficacy of drugs—which is most important when the taxpayer is obliged to pay for them and so needs to know that they deliver benefits—seek advice from a broad range of experts in the community before making decisions. They do not necessarily have to be the sole source of that advice. That is something that the opposition does not appear to understand.

Furthermore, considering the predilection of the Labor Party to move pious amendments of this nature, I find it quite interesting that when the original legislation that this legislation is correcting used some fairly sensible words written by a draftsman—that the purpose of the previous legislation was to arrange the provision of designated vaccines—that suddenly, however, created the problem of what was not designated, there was not an amendment promoted by the Labor Party at the time. According to the member for Lalor, this government was unbelievably incompetent not to see that that form of drafting was inadequate—but she, legally trained, did not pick it up either! Instead of writing all these negative pious amendments to somehow make it that the Labor Party has got a better strategy on this matter—notwithstanding their record—than the government, why not put down some positive measures? Why aren’t you doing this? Why have you got this particular restrictive description in the legislation? By so doing, the opposition probably would have got the cooperation of the government. It was equally available to the member for Lalor, with her legal training, to say, ‘Do you realise you have left out Q fever scratch tests?’ It is a funding provision, of course—it did not stop people having them—but few people might know just how important a Q fever scratch test is inasmuch as that, without it and the information that it provides, people can be made severely ill or risk death if they are immunised prior to knowing the antibodies that they already contain.

Whilst I am on my feet, let me say in respect of Q fever that it is all right for the member for Lalor to say the government has called an international tender ‘when the only manufacturer in the world is in Melbourne’. That is not correct. There is no manufacturer in the world. CSL, the only manufacturer in the world, ceased production. I am advised that CSL, having suddenly recognised their failure in that regard, are building a new facility. But if someone else in the world—some of the giants of pharmacy—could provide that vaccine quicker why shouldn’t the government test the market in that regard? Some of these people have got such huge resources, both in personnel and finance, that they might have been able to provide it more quickly.

There has been a big debate in this place in recent times about the staffing of meatworks where Q fever is prevalent. It is a very serious disease and, quite properly, OH&S conditions demand that no-one starts work in an abattoir in Australia without having been immunised—and you wonder why there is a so-called skill shortage. It takes 30 days to complete that treatment. If an Australian who had previously worked in a meatworks applied for a job and had not previously been immunised, in the present employment environment they are then told, ‘Go off and have a scratch test. After the results are available, if you require a Q fever vaccine’—it is in extremely short supply; I am constantly approaching the Minister for Health and Ageing on behalf of the meatworks in my electorate on this matter—‘and if we can get you some vaccine, you can start work X days after that.’ The person picks up the paper the following morning and sees a job—perhaps in the north-west and probably paying better money—and says, ‘I do not think I will bother.’

This is just a collateral or contingent result of a very necessary process but it is aggravated by the lack of this product because of a commercial decision of CSL, which did not think they were making enough money out of it. For the government to test the international market is surely not a matter for criticism, but instead just shows the paucity of the debate of the member for Lalor. She sits there never arguing in the positive but only in the negative. I do not know how that sort of policy will ever qualify people to run the country. I well remember her criticism of the government for its failure to have a virtually universal immunisation policy for pneumococcal and she may be right that the government was tardy in doing so. But I also remember that at the time the advice to government was that, because of the incidence of this particular disease, it could have a targeted program—for instance, amongst Aboriginal children—and that would meet the requirements at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer.

In the end she won that argument. It is probably to her credit when one looks at the statistics because pneumococcal disease attacks have dropped dramatically as a result: by 2005 it had reduced from 213 cases to 40 cases, a decrease of 81 per cent. I am more than happy to give her credit for her campaign on that occasion because she was talking about something positive. But boy, you can go through a lot of her speeches before you find another example of that nature.

This bill deals with the immunisation legislation of 2005 which provided an arrangement whereby the states, considering their management of health services, could be funded by the Commonwealth to provide an extensive range of free immunisation services. The arrangement for the provision of designed vaccines seemed to cover that and I assume ‘designated’ meant that it could be dealt with by regulation, but it did not say ‘scratch test’ and it did not say a couple of other things. It has been pointed out, presumably by Treasury, that the Australian government has no power to pay that money, and this legislation corrects that. It is not the first time and it will not be the last when a government of whatever political colour is called upon by their departments to correct legislation drafted with goodwill. For the member for Lalor to use words over and over like ‘unbelievably incompetent’ is silly; she also did not see the mistake in reviewing this legislation. It is about time she found some reasons to do so.

I repeat that there is no government on record that had such a poor record of delivery of immunisation services than the Hawke and Keating government. Not only did they find $13 million for a $250 million need; they also had a fundamental philosophical opposition to immunisation. They listened as they always do to some minority group. They were not interested in immunisation and it is a tragedy. When they start throwing around insults and accusations, please remember the facts. If it had not been for Michael Wooldridge bringing this to people’s attention and forcing the issue with those who were frightened—as half of them were, as they get frightened in this place on other issues, such as the nuclear issue—by people seeking political advantage. They had to be forced. They had to be threatened with a reduction in some of their welfare benefits. This government stood up to that and the results are a matter of record. Yes, we are spending a lot of money but we are not measuring success by expenditure. The Hawke-Keating Labor government had no credibility on this issue whatsoever and it should never be forgotten.

I wish to return just momentarily to the Q fever issue which is mentioned as a matter that this legislation will correct. It is an extremely important issue throughout the meat industry. Lay the blame on the government, lay the blame on CSL, lay it where you like, but you cannot have a meat industry in Australia—and I would think in many other parts of the world—without immunisation against Q fever. I think there is a member in this House who has contracted it and has advised me that it is a serious and recurring disease and, I gather, a bit like malaria in its effect and its recurrence. More particularly, it creates a huge employment problem when you cannot get the stuff on the shelf.

The response to scratch tests—and Q fever is mentioned—which are not designated vaccines, is extremely important in the vaccination program. Yes, it should have been recognised at the time, but the draftsmen did not recognise it. They thought they had covered the matter adequately, and it is no fault of the government. Furthermore, it brings no credit to the opposition when, having not noticed it themselves, they stand up here and use emotive words like ‘unbelievably incompetent’. It is silly, and it is about time they woke up. This bill should be passing through the House. It should be dealt with in the Main Committee and it should go through in a couple of minutes, as it is such a positive measure.

I also wish to take a moment to congratulate Professor Frazer for his wonderful achievement. From my understanding of what he has said, he has not found a cure or a vaccine for cervical cancer; he has found a vaccine for a virus that creates the conditions for cervical cancer. That is the technical fact and that is a great advance in pharmacology and in immunisation—looking behind the disease that kills women and finding out the cause of the disease.

I was very proud to see in the last budget the significant increase this government allocated to funding for medical research. The Labor Party amendment has no word of congratulations to the government on substantially increasing that funding. It was a huge increase and one that arguably might be funded by the sale of Medibank Private. What a good idea that would be. We have made the advance payment already; we did not wait. But these things follow, and where should a government provide assets?

The measures in this bill are best described as routine measures. They deal with areas of drafting deficiencies in the original legislation. There was a failure to include the incentive payment that we pay state governments so that they will be careful with the vaccines that we pay for. When someone pays money and another person spends it, the old saying is that it is a lot easier to spend it than it is to raise it. And it is a good policy to give an incentive to people not to overorder these vaccines and then have to throw them out because they pass their use-by date et cetera. That is another measure that is being corrected, and quite properly so.

May I say to all members of this place: I hope you are all taking the opportunity to have an annual flu vaccination and encouraging your staff to do so: (1) if I can take the commercial approach, it keeps us all at work; (2) not only does it save people from great discomfort in their younger years but also it saves people’s lives in their older years. I contacted Michael Wooldridge and he implemented the vaccination program in this place, which we members pay for. That is quite proper. It is convenient for people who work seven days a week, and I would not criticise anybody in this place for doing otherwise. If they do not find time to get vaccinated, they can be suddenly debilitated by their failure to do so and then may not be available for the efforts they so willingly make.

The simple fact is that this bill corrects a couple of drafting errors. It is not a matter of incompetence. The record of this government, measured in money—$13 million to $285 million—is clear evidence of its commitment and of the failure of the previous government in that regard. I think the bill should be passed with acclamation and probably should have been dealt with in the Main Committee, because it did not even need a 30-minute speech from the member for Lalor.

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