Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Senate estimates, I was alarmed to hear comments made by Liberal senator for South Australia, Senator Antic, about the National Immunisation Program, a program that delivers protection against many diseases through immunisation—a simple, safe and effective way to protect ourselves, our families and our communities. One vaccine included in the National Immunisation Program is for hepatitis B. Hepatitis B is one of the most common liver viruses in the world. It causes significant damage to the liver, causing both short-term and long-term effects and can lead to cancer. Around 200,000 Australians live with chronic hepatitis B, and thousands more are newly diagnosed every year. For First Nations Australians and for many culturally and linguistically diverse communities, the rates are even higher. The hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns is one of the safest, most effective public health measures we have. Last week in Senate estimates, Senator Antic asked:

… who can tell me the rationale for newborn babies having a vaccine for a disease which is largely in the domain of intravenous drug users and prostitutes?

This was from a senator in the Liberal Party of Australia. We know that there are 200,000 people in living with hepatitis B in Australia, including in vulnerable communities like sex workers, intravenous drug users, First Nations communities and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Sex workers and injecting drug users experience discrimination daily, which, sadly, results in a general acceptance of social stigma against them and internalised stigma within these communities. These people are valuable members of our community—people who matter and who deserve respect, quality health care and our protection. Included in the 200,000 people living with hepatitis B are people who have contracted the disease at birth through their mother or through exposure to unsterilised equipment, including those in tattooing and body piercing studios, from medical procedures or from needlestick injuries.

That's because, unlike Liberal senators, hepatitis B does not discriminate. What Senator Antic forgets is that immunisation is a preventative measure and has seen diagnosis rates fall across Australia and internationally. With Australia's program of neonatal immunisation for hepatitis B, there has been a clear and profound decrease in the rates of hep B in our community. To dismiss this as unnecessary or attempt to paint it with a brush of stigma is not just wrong and dehumanising; it is dangerous. It risks undermining public confidence in vaccines and public health. It risks turning back the clock to a time when preventable diseases claimed countless lives. Australians deserve representatives who to listen to the experts, not those who use their position to peddle misinformation and conspiracy theories. When medical researchers, public health experts, immunologists and physicians stand united behind our nation's vaccines program, that should count for something. Our national immunisation program saves lives. It protects our most vulnerable, and it upholds our shared responsibility to one another.

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