South Australian Public Health (Early Childhood Services and Immunisation) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 20 February 2020.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:46): I rise on behalf of the opposition to support this bill, which finally implements no jab no play reforms in South Australia. It has been 2½ long years since the Labor government first introduced no jab no play reforms into parliament. I note that in the other place this week for the third time the opposition introduced legislation after the government spent 18 months knocking back the opposition's second attempt.

There is a simple and obvious premise behind introducing no jab no play: the belief that kids should be vaccinated unless there is a medical reason why they cannot. Why? Because it helps increase herd immunity and lower the spread of preventable diseases. This keeps our kids and the broader community safe and healthy. This bill, very much like the opposition's private members' bill in another place, requires children in this state to retain appropriate immunisation levels in order to attend child care, kindergarten and other early childhood education.

The bill proposes new laws to improve immunisation rates among children, meaning that children must be appropriately immunised in order to attend early childhood care services. The mandatory immunisations would align with those immunisations listed on the National Immunisation Program childhood schedule. They include hepatitis B, whooping cough, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and those strains of meningococcal that are currently on the schedule. The bill aims to improve South Australia's overall immunisation coverage while concurrently reducing pockets of underimmunisation.

The bill proposes that in order to attend early childhood services a child must be age appropriately immunised, be on an immunisation catch-up program or meet the exemption requirements. There would be a maximum penalty of $30,000 for any person who provides an early childhood service and enrols a child without the appropriate exemption or immunisation history required, and there is a good faith defence to protect providers who are necessarily relying on the statements provided to them by parents and guardians.

Back in 2017, South Australia was leading the nation on this important public health policy. New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia have overtaken us and implemented their own no jab no play laws. Under the Steven Marshall Liberal government South Australia has been lagging behind, and to this date we have not heard any valid excuse for that delay.

Labor's bill on this topic was a result of community consultation, including a full YourSAy consultation process. Already, Labor had done the groundwork asking for feedback on a no jab no play policy of consulting stakeholders and clinicians. The hard work had already been done and all this government had to do was reintroduce the bill. This government has had zero shame in rebranding many great Labor initiatives of their own and taking credit, but for some reason that shamelessness did not extend to the no jab no play legislation. However, the government did not budge, not even when the shadow health minister specifically wrote and suggested they might want to pick this one up.

Frustrated by the government's inaction, the shadow health minister reintroduced the bill in July 2018 in the hope that it would receive bipartisanship support, but sadly the government proceeded to stifle debate on this important reform on 27 separate occasions over the following 18 months. The government will say that they had been working to implement no jab no play but what they have really done is delay implementing a comprehensive bill, fully informed by community consultation, with no justification.

Instead of moving to immediately implement Labor's bill, the government waited an entire year. They then introduced an alternative bill they claimed was the first step in implementing no jab no play, but to label it as such was misleading. The legislation last year merely requires early childhood care providers to ask for the immunisation records of children and in the event of an outbreak can require the centre to provide the immunisation records they have to the Chief Public Health Officer. What the opposition has learned in briefings on the bill is that this was substantially already happening in practice.

Prior to the introduction of the bill, some 98 per cent of childcare centres were already proactively collecting immunisation records, and in many cases the Chief Public Health Officer could already require unvaccinated children to stay home in the event of a preventable diseases outbreak. When the legislation was enacted earlier this year, the government put out a misleading media release claiming 'No jab no play begins at SA childcare services'. At the time phase 1 legislation was being debated in March last year, the minister was defensive of the phased approach and critical of Labor's attempts to have a proper no jab no play regime in place. I quote from the government at the time:

We need to make sure that we act in the best interests of children, primarily through maximising the immunisation coverage, but do so without a blunt instrument and instead use the best possible instrument to provide positive outcomes for children.

It turns out that after 2½ years the government decided what was the best possible instrument was the very same legislation that they voted down 27 times in the other place. Regrettably, an actual no jab no play regime in the form of this legislation is only just now being debated in this council. Unvaccinated kids are still attending our childcare centres and parents are still falling prey to the lies and fearmongering coming from the anti-vaxer movement.

All this could have been radically changed years ago but the government has stalled with delay after delay. After all this time, the legislation the government has put before us today looks almost identical to what the opposition reintroduced in another place for the third time 2½ years since its initial introduction. We now know for certain that the government has really been wasting everyone's time. They could have been taking real action to better protect our children. On this side of the house we believe in the value of immunising our children and keeping them safe and doing so as soon as possible.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.