WEBVTT - Birth defects & a national apology: What is Thalidomide?

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<v Speaker 1>My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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<v Speaker 1>Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighal country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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<v Speaker 1>that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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<v Speaker 1>Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate

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<v Speaker 1>island and nations. We pay our respects to the first

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<v Speaker 1>peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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<v Speaker 2>Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Thursday,

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<v Speaker 2>the thirtieth of November.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm Zara, I'm Saram.

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<v Speaker 2>Prime Minister Anthony Alberizi has made a national apology to

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<v Speaker 2>those impacted by a morning sickness drug in the early sixties.

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<v Speaker 2>The drug caused severe disabilities in thousands of babies whose

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<v Speaker 2>mothers had taken the drug.

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<v Speaker 4>So let it be said today and recorded for all time.

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<v Speaker 4>These parents, these mothers did nothing wrong. These parents did

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<v Speaker 4>not foil their children. The system foiled them both.

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<v Speaker 2>Now we're going to explain what the drug is, harmit

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<v Speaker 2>cause and why the PM apologized for it in the

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<v Speaker 2>Deep Dive. But first the headlines.

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<v Speaker 3>Free television content will become easier to find on smart TVs.

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<v Speaker 3>That's under new government measures legislation introduced by Communications Minister

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<v Speaker 3>Michelle Roland will require TV manufacturers to prioritize the on

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<v Speaker 3>screen discoverability of free tooware services over subscription services like Netflix.

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<v Speaker 3>Roland said it's becoming harder to find Australian programming on

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<v Speaker 3>connected devices like smart televisions, and that this bill will

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<v Speaker 3>prevent content slipping behind online paywalls.

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<v Speaker 2>The Victorian government will repay seven million dollars worth of

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<v Speaker 2>road taxes to electric vehicle owners in the state. Victorian

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<v Speaker 2>ev drivers had been required to make payments based on

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<v Speaker 2>the number of kilometers they traveled on public roads. However,

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<v Speaker 2>that road charge was challenged in the High Court earlier

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<v Speaker 2>this year and was eventually scrapped. Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas

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<v Speaker 2>told ABC News that government revenue from the tax will

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<v Speaker 2>be repaid to drivers with interest.

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<v Speaker 3>Amazon has launched its new AI assistant, Amazon Q. The

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<v Speaker 3>chatbot joins a growing market of AI assistants from tech

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<v Speaker 3>companies including Open Ai, Google and Microsoft. Amazon Q is

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<v Speaker 3>aimed at workplaces to help complete daily tasks and solve

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<v Speaker 3>business issues. Amazon said it thinks Q has the potential

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<v Speaker 3>to become a work companion for millions of workers. Pricing

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<v Speaker 3>starts at around twenty US dollars per month per person.

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<v Speaker 2>And the good news forty one construction workers have been

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<v Speaker 2>rescued after seventeen days trapped in a collapsed tunnel in India.

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<v Speaker 2>A landslide in the Himalayas buried a section of the

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<v Speaker 2>tunnel on the twelfth of November, but workers survived on

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<v Speaker 2>food and water delivered to them by rescuers through small pipes.

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<v Speaker 2>Handheld drills were used to eventually free all of the workers.

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<v Speaker 2>They were taken from medical checks and observation before they

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<v Speaker 2>were sent home. So Sam, this story about thalidamide has

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<v Speaker 2>obviously existed for a very long time, but was back

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<v Speaker 2>in the new cycle yesterday because Anthony Alberinezi delivered a

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<v Speaker 2>very rare but significant national apology to those affected. I'm

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<v Speaker 2>interested to know if you'd heard of this before yesterday.

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<v Speaker 3>I really hadn't. I hadn't heard of it yesterday, and

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<v Speaker 3>when I saw the emotional scenes unfolding in Parliament, it

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<v Speaker 3>felt like I'd really missed a big discussion, like it's

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<v Speaker 3>very rare for an apology to be delivered in the

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<v Speaker 3>National Parliament, and so I knew it was important and

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<v Speaker 3>I wanted to find out a bit more about it.

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<v Speaker 2>It was really interesting because I think like the majority

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<v Speaker 2>of people we were speaking to hadn't heard of it before, right,

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<v Speaker 2>And I thought that was interesting.

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<v Speaker 3>So before we get to the apology that was delivered yesterday,

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<v Speaker 3>can we first go back to what the drug actually

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<v Speaker 3>is and why it was used originally.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So the drugs called thlidamide. It was an oral

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<v Speaker 2>medication and it was given to pregnant women who were

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<v Speaker 2>experiencing morning sickness. So you can imagine that that's a

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<v Speaker 2>pretty big cohort. It was very big towards the end

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<v Speaker 2>of the fifties and the beginning of the nineteen sixties.

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<v Speaker 2>It was actually first developed as a sleeping pill, interestingly

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<v Speaker 2>sold in Germany in nineteen fifty seven, and it ended

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<v Speaker 2>up being distributed to about forty six countries around the world.

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<v Speaker 2>That of course included Australia, where we're talking about the

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<v Speaker 2>story today here. It was sold from nineteen sixty and

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<v Speaker 2>ended up being banned just a year later in nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>sixty one.

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<v Speaker 3>So it wasn't on the shelves for a very long time, no.

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<v Speaker 2>But it still had a huge impact despite only being

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<v Speaker 2>around for that short period.

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<v Speaker 3>What was that impact? Why was it then banned so quickly?

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<v Speaker 2>So essentially it was marketed as this reputable, highly effective drug,

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<v Speaker 2>but ultimately thlidamide was quickly found to be very, very unsafe.

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<v Speaker 2>It caused severe disabilities in the thousands of babies whose

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<v Speaker 2>mothers had taken the drug again, they were taking it

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<v Speaker 2>from warning sickness. What that looked like was babies being

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<v Speaker 2>born with shortened or absent limbs, things like facial disfigurement

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<v Speaker 2>or brain injury. There were also lowered health outcomes among survivors.

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<v Speaker 2>Things like poor mental health had also been reported. High

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<v Speaker 2>rates of premature deaths due to thlinamide were also reported,

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<v Speaker 2>and there were also miscarriages and infant deaths associated with

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<v Speaker 2>the drug. As many as one hundred thousand babies were

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<v Speaker 2>believed to have been affected by thlinamine.

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<v Speaker 3>And keeping in mind that time that it was on

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<v Speaker 3>the shelf, that's a lot of people. Where were the

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<v Speaker 3>signs in that year that the drug was dangerous and

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<v Speaker 3>kind of take me through how it came off the shelves.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So interestingly, it was an Australian doctor who was

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<v Speaker 2>the first to publicly make the link between thlinamide and

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<v Speaker 2>disabilities in infants.

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<v Speaker 3>So this was available elsewhere around them, and I think.

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<v Speaker 2>We said some of the forty six countries so yes.

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<v Speaker 2>But it was an Australian doctor. His name is William McBride.

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<v Speaker 2>He published a letter in a medical journal in nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>sixty one asking other doctors if they had seen similar

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<v Speaker 2>results to him, and the results he was talking about

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<v Speaker 2>there were babies with a particular set of disabilities being

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<v Speaker 2>born to women who had taken thlidamide. So essentially he

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<v Speaker 2>published what was an observation of a trend that he

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<v Speaker 2>was detecting, basically a call out to see has anyone

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<v Speaker 2>else seen this and could it be linked to the

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<v Speaker 2>drug that these women are taking? Ultimately turned out to

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<v Speaker 2>be true, and it was that that led eventually to

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<v Speaker 2>a ban on the drug. Later that year, the German

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<v Speaker 2>company that first developed the drug formally pulled thlidamide from

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<v Speaker 2>the market, and other distributors of course followed suit. While

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<v Speaker 2>the drug was only in circulation for fewer than five years,

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<v Speaker 2>it's fair to say it's had a generational impact on

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<v Speaker 2>families and communities across the world, and here in Australia

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<v Speaker 2>we saw the very real impact it had when Anthony

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<v Speaker 2>Aberinezi apologized, and we've seen some really moving photos of

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<v Speaker 2>people sitting in the public gallery balling because of it.

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<v Speaker 3>And there was a nice moment after as well where

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<v Speaker 3>Anthony Albanese actually met some of the survivors and kind

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<v Speaker 3>of embraced them personally. What did Anthony Aberanese actually apologize for?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it was interesting. I called my mum to talk

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<v Speaker 2>about this story yesterday and she couldn't understand what role

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<v Speaker 2>the Australian government had in it. She was like, well,

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<v Speaker 2>wasn't it the drug manufacturer or the researchers or you know,

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<v Speaker 2>the doctors were prescribing it, Like why is it the

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<v Speaker 2>Australian government? And essentially what Anthony Aberzi was saying was

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<v Speaker 2>related to the Australian Government's failure to test the advertised

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<v Speaker 2>claims that the drug was safe to use. Essentially, he

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<v Speaker 2>was apologizing that they didn't go far enough in testing

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<v Speaker 2>these claims.

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<v Speaker 5>There was no system for properly evaluating the safety of medicines,

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<v Speaker 5>and the terrible cruelty the lidamide was that far from

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<v Speaker 5>being safe, just one dose was enough to cause devastating harm.

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<v Speaker 5>Just one dose was enough to inflict a lifetime of

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<v Speaker 5>damage on an unborn child or indeed cause premature death

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<v Speaker 5>either in utero or in the years ahead.

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<v Speaker 2>And interestingly, the litamine tragedy partly led to the creation

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<v Speaker 2>of the Therapeutic Goods Administration Yeah, the TGA, which is

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<v Speaker 2>the medicine and the Therapeutic Regulatory Agency, so basically the

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<v Speaker 2>group that is regulating the quality, the supply, the advertising

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<v Speaker 2>of medicine here in Australia. But it was because of

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<v Speaker 2>this tragedy in part that that eventually was created. Albanize

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<v Speaker 2>said that the Australian health system failed the mothers who

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<v Speaker 2>used the littamite and he said they had been haunted

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<v Speaker 2>by undeserved regret their whole lives, calling the period one

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<v Speaker 2>of the darkest chapters in Australia's medical history. And as

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<v Speaker 2>we were just speaking about before, there were lots of

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<v Speaker 2>survivors in Parliament yesterday when Anthony Abernesi delivered this apology,

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<v Speaker 2>there was also a minute silence observed for those who

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<v Speaker 2>had suffered or died due to the drugs.

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<v Speaker 3>So this apology didn't come out of nowhere. What have

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<v Speaker 3>we seen the Australian government do over the last couple

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<v Speaker 3>of years that's led to this.

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<v Speaker 2>So a key reform came back in twenty twenty, so

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<v Speaker 2>that was the Morrison government at the time. They announced

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<v Speaker 2>a program that would provide compensation for survivors.

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<v Speaker 3>Still remarkable, it was between nineteen sixty one to twenty twenty. Yes,

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<v Speaker 3>it's a long time.

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<v Speaker 2>It actually came in two forms. So the first was

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<v Speaker 2>a one off tax free payment between seventy five thousand

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<v Speaker 2>dollars and half a million dollars. The amount that each

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<v Speaker 2>recipient got would depend on their level of disability. The

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<v Speaker 2>other was an ongoing annual payment, so that was designed

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<v Speaker 2>to provide survivors with a very steady payment to then

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<v Speaker 2>help them address what can only be characterized as like

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<v Speaker 2>ongoing health needs on a day to day basis.

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<v Speaker 3>And when Anthony Albinezi won the election last year, did

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<v Speaker 3>he maintain that Morrison government policy up until today.

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<v Speaker 2>So there hadn't been any changes until yesterday. In his apology,

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<v Speaker 2>Albanezi promised two changes to the program. Firstly, he said

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<v Speaker 2>that those who didn't receive compensation from the program when

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<v Speaker 2>it launched would now be given the opportunity to make

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<v Speaker 2>an application. He also committed to indexing the annual payments

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<v Speaker 2>from the government, so that it just means that the

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<v Speaker 2>payment will rise each year in accordance with inflation.

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<v Speaker 3>I think the thing that's really struck me about this

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<v Speaker 3>story is that period between nineteen sixty one and twenty twenty,

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<v Speaker 3>and I can only imagine the hard work that went

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<v Speaker 3>into advocating for survivors during that time. So for then

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<v Speaker 3>a program to come in twenty twenty and an apology

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<v Speaker 3>to be delivered in National Parliament three years later does

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<v Speaker 3>seem like progress in this space, and I hope it's

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<v Speaker 3>brought some sort of solace to survivors and their families.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then on the symbolic side, there'll also be

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<v Speaker 2>a national Solidimide recognition site. Basically a monument be unveiled

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<v Speaker 2>in Canberra today and there'll be a ceremony that will

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<v Speaker 2>be attended by polidamine survivors and their families.

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<v Speaker 3>That's all from us here today at The Daily Oz.

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<v Speaker 3>If you enjoyed this podcast, would love you to leave

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<v Speaker 3>a review or a comment and question in the Spotify

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<v Speaker 3>answer box. You can also leave a review on Apple

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<v Speaker 3>Podcasts if that's where you're listening. We'll be back again

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<v Speaker 3>in your ears tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.