Questions Time: Meningococcal B Strain Vaccination

Tuesday September 04, 2018

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (14:48): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the minister representing the Minister for Health. Can the minister update the house on the progress of the meningococcal B vaccine program?

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:48): Yes—

Mr Picton: Don't mislead the house.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: No, no.

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Yes, I can. The meningococcal B vaccination program is very important, and it is no laughing matter. It is something that all members of this parliament were very interested in before the election. There was debate from both sides about whose policy was going to be best, and the reality is that the now Minister for Health, the Hon. Stephen Wade from the other place, said that he would undertake a thorough review of the best way to do it. Members opposite said that that was a delaying tactic, which of course it was not.

We all know that the health minister, the Hon. Stephen Wade, is an incredibly thorough person. He found out through that review by getting clinical advice from professionals with knowledge in the area—not from members of parliament but from people who could actually contribute to that review—that a targeted program was what was needed, that different support for different people from different age groups was probably one of the most important aspects. So he is delivering a program targeted to get the best benefit, and what is most important here, the best protection for people so that they hopefully will never contract meningococcal B.

Our government takes this work incredibly seriously, the Minister for Health takes this work incredibly seriously, and we are doing everything that we can do to prevent people from contracting meningococcal B, because we all know in this place what a dreadfully debilitating and quickly debilitating and incredibly hard to treat and hard to recover from disease it is. We will do the very best we can to stop people from being affected by it.

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