IMMUNISATION RATES

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide) (15:13): My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Port Adelaide, can you sit down a minute, please? Members will not shout at the top of their voice across the chamber. The member for Port Adelaide.

Dr CLOSE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister update the house on the rates of immunisation of South Australian children?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Arts) (15:13): I thank the member very much for her question. Before I go on, I thank the member for Croydon for pointing out that it was the Dunstan government, not the Playford government, that introduced the lotteries legislation.

Latest stats from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register show that 89 per cent of South Australian children are fully vaccinated by the time they turn five. These statistics are issued quarterly by the commonwealth, and the report issued in September 2012 reflects data as on the last day of the financial year this year. I am pleased to say that is a significant increase of 14 percentage points compared to the same period in 2008, when only 75 per cent of children were fully immunised by the age of five.

There was a report, I think in the media yesterday, which indicated some concern about a dropping rate. The reverse is the case in South Australia, yet the rate is still not where we would want it to be. The increase we have had so far is largely due to commonwealth and state-supported initiatives that include changing the assessment age from six years to five years and positive promotion and education around the importance of vaccinating children on time. Since 2008, there has been regular advertising in newspapers and parent magazines to get the message out to parents about the importance of vaccines due at age four.

A campaign called Big Help for Little Adventurers, Jack's Big Adventure, is encouraging parents to have their child fully immunised before they start kindergarten. It is a children's book that parents can read to their kids to reinforce the message and to get kids understanding and accepting about what might happen. Before this campaign started, 49 per cent of children received their four-year-old vaccines within one month of turning four. Since, 81 per cent of children now receive their vaccines within a month of turning four, and that is a 32 per cent turnaround. I think all members would be impressed by that.

Parents of newborn Aboriginal children are also being reminded to get their infants vaccinated on time at two, four and six months of age. Additionally, a nurse immunisation coordinator is working with Aboriginal immunisation services in the northern metropolitan area to enhance access to services and promote timely immunisation there. Immunisation rates have also increased amongst Indigenous four year olds, from 63 per cent in 2008 to 83 per cent for the same period in 2012, so I think members can see there is real improvement.

Campaigns have also targeted areas with low rates of immunisation, including the Adelaide Hills and Riverland regions. I would encourage members who represent those communities to do what they can to encourage their constituents to have their children immunised. There are groups in our community who campaign against immunisation, based on false understandings. It does scare some people and they do seem to be consolidated in certain parts of our state.

The immunisation section of SA Health continues to monitor and target areas of low coverage in the five-year-old age group. National strategies such as the recently-introduced policy of linking immunisation status to the Family Tax Benefit Part A supplement will complement the work that is being done in our state and we hope will further build on those gains. There has been great improvement in this area but, as I said, there is more that we need to do. I think we ought to be 95 per cent plus and I hope over the next few years we will continue to see that improvement. I thank the member for Port Adelaide for her very important question.