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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-09-10 Daily Xml
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No Jab No Play

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:52): My question is to the Minister for Education. In his own role and also in the role of representing the Minister for Health and Wellbeing, when will the Department for Health respond to representations made by me on behalf of my constituents, and in the meantime while we wait for the outcome of the registration and appeal process, what can be done to allow their child to return to the early learning centre where she was enrolled prior to the implementation of the no jab no play legislation? With your leave, sir, and that of the house I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: Despite the efforts of her parents who are acting on medical advice and persistent and constant representations, slow-moving bureaucracy has denied their child the right on medical grounds to be able to attend early learning, and she now needs your help to get things moving and allow her dad the ability to return to the workforce and keep earning a wage to support his family. I am happy to provide you with extra information should you need it.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (15:53): I thank the member for Florey for the question, and I trust that the names provided in the question will provide sufficient information for the Minister for Health, to whom I will go to ask the question that the member for Florey has raised so that a response from the Minister for Health in relation to the matters that pertain to his portfolio can be brought back to the member for Florey.

However, I will provide an aspect of the answer now rather than take it formally on notice because I suspect that the Minister for Health's aspect of the response may contain personal information which might be appropriately directly provided to the member for Florey.

For the further information of the house I can advise that in early August, when the no jab no play legislation came into effect, I suspect that the family which the member for Florey is referring to is one of a number of South Australian families who have had the impact of a child currently enrolled in a preschool service unable to continue that enrolment by virtue of not having the information related to up-to-date immunisation processes being available to the preschool service.

For the overwhelming majority of South Australian preschool enrolees, that information has been with the preschool effectively since the beginning of this year, when it was required in relation to the earlier version of the legislation passed by this parliament, I think, over a year ago. That was in relation to immunisation records being required in the event that they would need to be brought upon if there was some sort of event, that that would be of interest to keeping children safe.

The second round of legislation, which was introduced into the parliament in the first half of this year and passed in the parliament in May, I think, put on that further obligation that the continued attendance of a child could only occur if they were vaccinated, had their immunisations up to date and had the paperwork with the preschool, unless of course there was a medical exemption. I believe there is a process that has been fairly clearly articulated to all families in South Australia—at great pains by preschool directors and their staff across our 380 government sites and many other sites throughout South Australia in the non-government system, but the overwhelming majority of our students are in our government preschools.

I have spoken to many preschool directors around South Australia about how this process has gone. The member for Finniss and I were in Victor Harbor, at the Victor Harbor kindergarten only last week, I think it was, where examples were raised. I have been to a range of other preschools throughout metropolitan and regional South Australia in the last month, and it has been a topic of conversation. A number of those preschools have reported that every single child is immunised, every single child's family has provided the papers. There are some sites, a small number of sites, where there are a number of children whose parents for whatever reason do not wish them to be vaccinated. They have been informed, prior to the process, that this service would not be available unless they got their children vaccinated.

There is an opportunity for a temporary exemption process to take place for those children for whom there is a vulnerability in their situation and an inadequacy of the paperwork in their family. There is a particular cohort with whom we are working with SA Health very closely to help get their situation up to date. There are also a number of families that are still seeking medical exemptions. That may be the circumstance here, and we will provide further details directly to the member for Florey as possible.

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