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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-07-04 Daily Xml
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South Australian Public Health (Immunisation and Early Childhood Services) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (10:49): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the South Australian Public Health Act 2011. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (10:49): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill I am introducing today, otherwise known as the no jab no play bill, is a very important bill for increasing the level of vaccination rates amongst children in South Australia. It will require children in this state to attain the appropriate immunisation levels in order to attend child care, kindergarten and other early childhood education. This bill was introduced by the former Labor government in the Legislative Council last year following extensive consultation with the community. Unfortunately, the bill stalled in that house before the last election and then parliament was prorogued.

We are introducing the bill in this parliament because we believe it is of critical importance that we achieve higher levels of vaccination in the South Australian population, most notably for the benefit of vulnerable children. I hope all members can see the importance of this bill in helping to protect our most vulnerable from the spread of preventable disease. In particular, there are some children who, for medical reasons, are unable to be vaccinated. It is important that all other children are vaccinated to ensure that those vulnerable kids, who for medical reasons cannot be vaccinated, are as best protected as possible.

The bill proposes tough new laws to improve immunisation rates amongst 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 no jab no play bill aims to improve South Australia's overall immunisation coverage while concurrently reducing pockets of underimmunisation. Early childhood care services are those that provide care for young children under the age of six years for fee or reward, such as child care, also called centre-based care; long day care and early learning centres; family day care; preschool and kindergarten; rural care programs; mobile childcare services; and occasional care. The no jab no play bill proposes that in order to attend early childhood services, a child must be age-appropriately immunised, on an immunisation catch-up program, or meet the exemption requirements.

Parents and guardians would be required to provide early childhood services with evidence that their child meets the immunisation requirements. The bill also proposes that a child with a vaccine-preventable disease, or who is at risk of getting a vaccine-preventable disease, may be excluded from the early childhood service when an outbreak of that disease is occurring at the service. For consistency, exemption requirements will align with the commonwealth government's no jab no play legislation.

The bill attaches a maximum penalty of $30,000 to any person who provides an early childhood service and enrols a child without the appropriate exemption or immunisation history required. It is also anticipated that the no jab no play bill will improve the recording of vaccines in the South Australian population, which in turn will protect our community by increasing the level of immunity as such a large percentage of the population would be immunised against a specific disease, resulting in it becoming harder for vaccine-treatable diseases to spread.

This is legislation that is currently in place in three other states, notably New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. So, in the largest states in Australia, this legislation is in place protecting children there. We believe it should be in place here in South Australia to protect our kids. It is consistent with the steps the commonwealth government is taking on no jab no play. We call upon the government to seize the initiative, be bipartisan about this and support this legislation going through both houses of parliament.

I have to say, though, there is one vaccine that would not currently be covered by the bill that we hope in the future would be covered, and that is a vaccine to protect kids from meningococcal B. The vaccine for meningococcal B has been turned down a number of times at the national level by the PBAC—the federal government's authority that considers immunisation listings—largely, I think, because the evidence is that it is very specific to South Australia and does not have a broad national scope across the country.

We are seeing a very disturbing number of meningococcal B cases in South Australia. Already this year, there have been 12 meningococcal B cases in this state and that number is only going to rise as we get to the end of winter and through to the end of the year.

We took to the last election a policy to bring in an immunisation program for meningococcal B. When we lost the election, we gave our details, our costing documents, to the government and released them publicly so that we could hopefully see this up and running as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there have since been delays in that. The government has since set up an expert panel to assess that. They have delivered a report to the minister, which he has refused to release. We understand that that report does recommend an immunisation program for South Australian children of zero to five years and a catch-up program for teenagers.

Now that the minister has the report from his expert working group that he hand-picked, we think it is incumbent upon him to immediately take action to bring that immunisation program in for meningococcal B in South Australia right now. There is not a moment to lose. We think that the vaccine should be ordered immediately so that we can get this up and running as soon as possible in South Australia, and we would call upon him to do that. When that is in place, I hope that one day that could be part of this legislation as well. I commend this legislation to the house. It will play an important role in increasing our immunisation rates in South Australia and keeping children safe.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pederick.

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