Rebecca White (Lyons, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to this amendment, I am rising to both provide a response to the honourable member and sum up on the substantive elements of the National Health Amendment (Passive Immunological Products) Bill 2026. Deputy Speaker Haines, I want to acknowledge the contribution that was made and the depth of knowledge that you bring to this place in sharing your personal experience and speaking about some of the horrific things that you've witnessed on the hospital ward and some of the families that you've represented through your remarks. I also acknowledge the other remarks that were made in response to the tabling of this bill and the support that's been provided by the opposition members for it. I think that, broadly, we all agree that we want immunisation levels to increase across the country, particularly for vulnerable cohorts like babies, and we want to protect Australians from potentially life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases. The bill that was before the chair seeks to do that by simple a simple amendment to recognise emerging therapies such as immunising monoclonal antibodies so that they can be listed on the NIP.

I have my own story of a child who was diagnosed with RSV and know how terrifying that can be as a parent. I'll just share it briefly. He wasn't vaccinated, and that's very common in Australia. I live in Tasmania and took him to the after-hours doctor. He had a temperature. He had very fast breathing and was clearly not very well. They took him into the treatment room and they assessed his vitals and informed me that he'd need to go to hospital. So I responded in the way that I thought you would. I was only 30 minutes from Hobart. I'd just get in the car and drive him to hospital. And they said, 'No, we're calling an ambulance,' and at that point it struck me how serious it was and how sick my two-year-old was. The ambulance arrived, and we went into hospital and had a very long stay overnight. Thankfully, he got discharged the next day.

Over the course of those 12 to 24 hours, he was provided with exemplary care, but, as is unfortunately the case in Tasmanian hospitals, we were stuck in the emergency department waiting room that entire time. He was admitted to the paediatric ward, but we were treated on the floor of the emergency department, with the doctors coming down and doing their visits to him because there were no beds. So he slept on me while they did 40-minute checks. At that stage we weren't sure quite what was wrong with him, so they were waking him. He was tired and exhausted and sick, and they were trying to check with an asthma ventilator to make sure he could breathe properly and see whether it was something to do with having an asthma condition or whether it was something more serious. The doctors did their job, got the information they needed and confirmed that it was RSV. There were quite a few children who were dealing with RSV at that time in Tasmania, and some of them became critically unwell, were admitted to the ICU and were very lucky that they survived. So I understand how terrible a disease like this is and how important it is for us to do everything possible to prevent it, and adding it to the NIP just makes it possible for families to have affordable access to these sorts of vaccines and prevent these diseases before they ever impact on our children or threaten the lives of our loved ones.

The amendment that the honourable member has moved won't be supported by the government. We want to progress this legislation so that we can make sure that we can add these types of new, emerging therapies to the NIP. Particularly for, in this instance, RSV, I understand your motivation in seeking to amend this bill and respectfully disagree that this is the way you try to progress a cause like this, because it would, of course, disrupt our ability to pass this bill as intended. From talking to the minister and those in the department, I know that there was across government a focus on how we lift immunisation rates across the country, particularly for children and vulnerable cohorts, because it's quite accurate to point out that the levels are falling below the acceptable herd immunity rate of 95 per cent for some particular disease groups.

I thank the honourable member for her contribution, for her intent, but we won't be supporting the amendment. I'm not sure if there are any other speakers on this bill, but I suspect that's the end of it. I thank those members who did speak in support of it and who understand how important it is for us to progress this.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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