2UE Interview with Justin Smith
JUSTIN SMITH:
The controversial No Jab, No Pay laws have now passed through both houses of Parliament. Social Services Minister, Christian Porter is on the line. Hi Minister.
MINISTER PORTER:
Justin, how are you?
JUSTIN SMITH:
I’m good, thank you very much for this. Congratulations, you happy?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, I think it’s a great step forward I must say. I’ve got a young child myself of eight weeks at home. So look, I think like any parent, you’re very concerned about preventable diseases and the diseases we’ve been talking about, whooping cough, chicken pox, measles, are all preventable. What we did was we took the best available scientific advice and evidence. Scientists talk about a level of herd immunity which is that point that you require to effectively control the transmission of an infection amongst a population and that varies from disease to disease, but those diseases that I’ve just mentioned, that herd immunity level is 95 per cent, and we in Australia were dropping below that level of group immunity because of the very large number of what were known as conscientious objectors. And we felt, as a government, that we needed to rectify that situation.
JUSTIN SMITH:
You talk about conscientious objectors – we’re talking about the anti-vaccination people. Did you need to just stick your head down and basically realise that we, and you, were in the right and they just needed to play along with it?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, I think that the public policy case for doing what the government has done is so strong, so rational, and so backed by the best scientific evidence, that every Member of this government will make that case. I mean, the opportunity they get, I mean it’s not something that anyone should be afraid to advocate…
JUSTIN SMITH:
Well – sorry, Minister, go ahead.
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, and the results are in terms of the benefit for children across the board, across the entirety of Australian society, so…
JUSTIN SMITH:
Well, I had a young Mum form Newcastle that I was chatting to only last week, Jade Lewis, and her little one, Fern. And Fern was gasping for breath and coughing and is still not out of the woods yet. But she filmed it and put it on Facebook to show people what a baby with whooping cough actually looks like because sadly, Christian, we forget, don’t we?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, we do. I sort of grew up in the 1970s and I had a cousin who was literally one of the last Australian children to contract Polio and you know, I think the collective memory of the devastation that diseases like Polio and whooping cough and chicken pox and measles can wrought across Australia and our society has kind of gone in a way. Now that probably, that level of forgetfulness probably contributed to the high levels of conscientious objection. But that’s something that governments have to reverse.
JUSTIN SMITH:
Did you have more of a fight on your hands with the anti-vaccination people? I mean, have they got anything left in ammunition they can pull out?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, as I was saying, I think that the arguments that I’ve seen that were raised by opponents of this legislative policy are weak arguments. I think they all can be countered, and very strongly so. But, obviously, in all government decision making and policy you are looking at how you affect the greatest benefit across Australia and you take into account whatever minor cost there might be in doing that. Now, in these circumstances, people still have their choice, which is free, which is to vaccinate or not vaccinate. What we do say is that we shouldn’t be applying taxpayer money through the child rebate system, and through the family tax benefit system, in a way that effectively rewards activities which drop down the overall rate of immunisation. You can still make the choice, but you do so in free knowledge that your free will may lead to a financial disadvantage.
JUSTIN SMITH:
Minister, thank you very much for your time. How’s the job going? It’s pretty new for you, you getting your head around it alright?
MINISTER PORTER:
Well, eight weeks in, there’s plenty of ground to cover, but there’s lots of really good things that we can do in terms of making our welfare system more efficient and trying to target help to those who need it most and that’s the core of the job.
JUSTIN SMITH:
Well, we hear good things about you. Thank you very much.
MINISTER PORTER:
Thank you.
[ENDS]