Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (15:00:12) — Protecting our children's health is crucial. This bill introduces a series of changes to make improvements. But it would be remiss of me not to mention and acknowledge a significant event that occurred today. A world-first initiative was announced that will transform Victoria into a living laboratory to ensure better health, development and wellbeing for our children and their families — this is how the head of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Professor Kathryn North, defined its significance. It is the Generation Victoria (Gen V) initiative, and the aim is to invite parents of all babies born in 2020 and 2021 across the state to participate. Together they will create a holistic picture of the health and wellbeing of Victorian children and uncover the causes of a broad range of conditions pertinent to this bill and to the strategy of the Andrews government.

Gen V has been made possible through a partnership with philanthropy. The Paul Ramsay Foundation committed nearly $25 million over five years and the Victorian government put in $2 million now, which is in addition to the government's more than $33 million investment in genomic sequencing, which is helping thousands of Victorians with rare diseases or cancers get the diagnosis and treatment they need faster. This also goes to our medical research leadership and excellence, because we have the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at the heart of it, the University of Melbourne as a major contributor and also the Royal Children's Hospital. For the University of Melbourne it is their department of paediatrics. This is a coalition across health and education sectors.

One of the key things that it will do is embed this approach into our education and health systems. We will be able to extract the data and get the research that counts and then be able to mine it in a way that protects privacy but allows us to actually look at what the critical issues are that we need to address now and in the future. So that has been a wonderful announcement today, and I want to commend the Minister for Health, who I think is Australia's most effective health minister — that stands on a whole range of initiatives that she has delivered, particularly with this one. I supported the 'big idea', as the Murdoch Children's Research Institute called it, from the first time I heard it. You can see, if we get the alignment right, how important this will be.

Here is a modern epidemic put simply: one in 20 children has food allergies, one in five children born into disadvantage is intellectually impaired before they get to school and they do not catch up, one in four children has mental health problems and one in three children is obese or overweight. These are the modern issues and dilemmas that Professor Kathryn North cited at today's announcement. The whole proposition about this Generation V strategy is that we will embed the research into medical institution systems, we will look at how to prevent childhood problems and then hopefully our children will be the healthiest generation ever by 2030. That is her stated objective. This is a groundbreaking, internationally leading proposition that has happened here in Melbourne and, again, it goes to our international leadership and excellence.

It is one of our great sectors, medical research. I have been humbled to be a part of working with some of the brightest people you could meet anywhere, who dedicate their lives. They are culturalists, not monetarists. They are making an effort that gives them meaning, and their applied intelligence is of the utmost significance.

I think if you look across the range of initiatives that the health minister has brought in in legislation, this is another one to actually counter this conflict that we have between culture wars and knowledge wars. Particularly on the no jab, no play issue — I referenced this when the bill was originally introduced in 2015 — knowledge is power, and we as a community have to decide whether we support enlightenment — that is, evidence-based science rigorously tested, independently reviewed by experts — or whether we will be captured by fear and prejudice. These are the core issues at the heart of the introduction of the Andrews government's no jab, no play bill because it is intended to boost immunisation rates right across the Victorian community, and unfortunately they have to be tightened up. That is what these amendments are designed to do.

The amendments in relation to no jab, no play, the Health Complaints Act 2016, the reportable conduct scheme and the child safety standards are intended to improve the operation of these regulatory schemes to ensure they achieve their policy purpose. The commitment to the implementation of mandatory reporting of anaphylaxis responds to a coronial recommendation. The amendment will ensure the Department of Health and Human Services can respond and take timely action where necessary in response to reported cases of anaphylaxis.

What the bill is directly aimed at doing is improving the operation of the three important regulatory schemes introduced by the Andrews Labor government — no jab, no play; the reportable conduct scheme; and the statutory scheme for responding to complaints made about health service providers — and providing for mandatory reporting of cases of anaphylaxis to the Department of Health and Human Services by public and private hospitals, so there is the key mandatory reporting proposition. It will also tighten and simplify immunisation requirements for enrolment in an early childhood service or primary school and clarify and provide certainty about the health complaints commissioner's ability to issue legal proceedings for offences under the Health Complaints Act 2016.

On immunisation, this is still an issue that is being debated and contested within the community. I just want to reference how it was put — I thought very well — in the book called The Knowledge Wars by Nobel laureate Peter Doherty. He made the point that parents feel that they are empowered to say whether or not their children should be vaccinated and that can immediately distance us from any desire to understand where the risks really lie.

All these reactions are very human.

The problem is, though, that real advances in human wellbeing are based in discovery and innovation, not in the dogmatic pronouncements of dubious 'leaders' or in widely shared but uninformed views. If you want to engage with a world where authority, belief, fear, prejudice and 'natural' remedies ruled, take a look at life as it was in the 13th century! Then think again how the culture of reason, rigorous inquiry and innovation that defines 'western' values since the time of the enlightenment has so transformed human existence. Ultimately, the abandonment of reason and intellectual integrity is not in the best interests of any of us.

I think that eloquently sums up what is at the heart of this bill: the necessity to keep legislating, to keep educating and to try to get people to understand where the real risk lies and what its consequences could be. I recommend the bill to the house.