Page 1533 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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Wednesday, 12 August 1992
_________________________
MADAM SPEAKER (Ms McRae) took the chair at 10.30 am and read the prayer.
DAILY PROGRAM
MADAM SPEAKER: Before the Assembly commences consideration of private members business, I point out to members a typographical error in the daily program. The matter of public importance submitted for discussion today should read, "The need to support a productive and viable building industry in the ACT".
TUBERCULOSIS (REPEAL) BILL 1992
MRS CARNELL (10.31): I present the Tuberculosis (Repeal) Bill 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MRS CARNELL: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill provides for the repeal of the Tuberculosis Act 1950. The Tuberculosis Act is no longer necessary as it is a duplication of public health regulations in other places. In particular, we have the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations and the recently amended Public Health (Infectious and Notifiable Diseases) Regulations, which cover many of the same areas as the TB Act. So there is little reason for the TB Act to remain on the statute books.
The Tuberculosis Act does have one provision not contained in other public health regulations. This is section 6. It relates to mass screening for tuberculosis. It gives the Minister power to require all persons over the age of 14 to submit to radiological examinations of their lungs. This is truly, and thankfully, out of date. During the year to June 1992 only 10 new cases of tuberculosis were notified in the ACT. So we are hardly in danger of a mass outbreak of tuberculosis, thanks to public health measures and the vaccination programs of past years.
The 1950 Tuberculosis Act was written at a time when we had not seen the fruits of a successful immunisation and public health screening program. I hope Mr Berry remembers how successful immunisation can be when he considers, in his budget deliberations, whether to fund a provision of haemophilia vaccine to protect ACT children from meningitis and other serious illnesses. TB has been so well controlled that the NHMRC has recommended that community-wide screening programs, such as chest X-rays and Mantoux testing, and the BCG vaccine are no longer indicated for the general population in Australia.
Mr Berry: It is all right on one hand and not on the other, though? You do not like the NHMRC's recommendations on the haemophiliacs.
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