Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

To the member for Indi, this is one of these matters on which we spent an enormous amount of time seeking advice from the Chief Medical Officer. I'm pleased that we are in a position, subject to the advice of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, to move to extend vaccination to all 12- to 15-year-olds if that is the advice. At this stage, we have today expanded the eligible 12- to 15-year-old category to include all NDIS participants, on top of immunocompromised children, Indigenous children and remote children.

In addition to that, a very important factor, as the Prime Minister alluded to, is that although children are not immune they have been overwhelmingly protected. Thankfully, no child under the age of 14 has lost their life in Australia. We have, tragically, had a 15-year-old die, but the circumstances are under investigation. We have a hospitalisation rate of two per cent—mostly for observational purposes, but there are very sick children amongst them—of those children who have been diagnosed. That compares, obviously, with hospitalisation rates across the states of between 40 and 70 per cent for over-70-year-olds. These actions are being taken, and the higher the vaccination rate the more every child is protected. (Time expired)

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