Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

In summing up, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to the debate on the National Health Amendment (Immunisation) Bill 2006. They include: the members for Lalor, Blaxland, Richmond, Shortland, Gorton, and Canberra from the opposition; and the members for O’Connor, Pearce and Riverina from the government. As the member for Canberra just said, this is a highly technical bill designed to amend two unintended consequences of amendments to the National Health Act 1953 that would enable the Minister for Health and Ageing to arrange for the provision of goods and services such as Q fever skin tests and for five per cent incentive payments to states and territories that are associated with the provision or administration of designated vaccines.

In short, this bill will allow the minister for health to continue using those two facilities before they impact on the states and territories or on the provision of important vaccines. This bill ensures that the unintended consequences of those earlier amendments do not impact on consumers in particular.

The member for Lalor in typical style made an amendment to this bill, which touched on a number of issues that had no bearing at all on the National Health Amendment (Immunisation) Bill 2006. This comes as no surprise to those of us who know the member for Lalor. In the amendment, she tries to save face over the embarrassment of her health policies in the last federal election. The third aspect of her amendment, which I would like to comment on, says that we failed to provide adequate ongoing funding for essential vaccines over the forward estimates of the 2006-07 budget and that somehow this means that we have doubt about the long-term commitment of the government to the National Immunisation Program.

The member for Lalor is trying to scare the Australian public into believing that this side of the House does not have a commitment to the National Immunisation Program. The two things I would say about that are: firstly, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This side of the House provided a 90 per cent coverage of 12- to 15-month-old children with important vaccines in 2006. When we took over 10 years ago from the now opposition, the immunisation rates were 52 per cent. In that 10-year period we have dramatically increased the number of children who are immunised. It is an embarrassment that the opposition would even seek to pretend that they have any clothes to wear when it comes to immunisation rates. We had one of the lowest immunisation rates in the Western world in 1996—an embarrassment in a country like Australia. Today, 10½ years later, we have one of the best in the Western world. So I think our record speaks for itself.

Secondly, the member for Lalor suggests that, because the figures from the 2006-07 budget are not in the forward estimates, somehow this means that we are not going to continue to fund the National Immunisation Program. The member for Lalor only exhibits her complete ignorance of governments and of budgets, which of course would come from not ever having had any experience of government, as a shadow minister who has come into this House since Labor has been in opposition. If we were to put the figures in the forward estimates for the National Immunisation Program, which we have never done, we would be flagging to the pharmaceutical companies exactly how much money we were prepared to spend. As we are trying to keep the costs of these products as low as possible in order to be responsible with taxpayers’ money, it would be irresponsible if we were to flag to the very people we would be paying for these vaccines exactly how much we were prepared to pay and so render our negotiating position completely useless. The member for Lalor might like to spend a bit more time on how budgets work and the health portfolio, and perhaps in the future she won’t propose such embarrassing amendments to government technical bills. I thank the House.

See this speech in context