Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak in support of the motion brought to the House by the member for Shortland. The electorate of Shortland borders my electorate of Dobell, and I thank the member for Shortland for once again bringing a motion to the House that advocates fairness and justice. As the motion states, epilepsy is the most common serious brain disorder. Everyone in this room and everyone in this parliament will know someone who has suffered from epilepsy. Prior to the late 19th century, epilepsy was generally seen as a form of insanity or possession. It has always been a condition that has caused alarm to many people and it can still disturb people who witness convulsions. There are around 200,000 people diagnosed with epilepsy at any one time in Australia, with possibly another half a million family members involved in their care. There are somewhere between 360,000 and 540,000 Australians who will be diagnosed with epilepsy during their lifetimes, and over two million Australians will have a single non-epileptic seizure at some stage in their life.

There are many burdens placed on the men and women of Australia who live with epilepsy. The Joint Epilepsy Council lists some of the problems as: a lack of acceptance by people in many sporting clubs and other significant social activities; reduced opportunities for education; difficulties gaining employment and sometimes in keeping it; a host of safety concerns, both in the home and in the community; having to learn how to deal with rejection by peer groups, exclusion, marginalisation and loneliness; living with the fear of never really knowing when the next seizure event will take place or how bad it will be; being unable to drive for mandatory periods of time unless you have fully controlled seizures; knowing that most people are afraid of seizures when they see them happening and are ill-prepared to deal with them.

The new government, the Rudd government, has a vision for a more inclusive Australia. As ANZ’s Saul Eslake and the Business Council of Australia’s Michael Chaney have recently told us, reducing disadvantage is now both a moral and economic imperative for Australia. As people who suffer from epilepsy have reduced opportunities for education, difficulties in gaining employment and increased difficulty in retaining employment, it is essential that our government look to fund greater research into epilepsy.

In my electorate of Dobell there are tens of thousands of men and women who drive to Sydney every day for employment. Epilepsy can stop someone from being able to drive, and thus some epilepsy sufferers on the Central Coast would be given an added burden of not being able to gain meaningful employment in Sydney, where many of the people who live in the electorate find employment.

This is an opportunity for the government to bring in policies of compassion that will make our community and our economy stronger. The Joint Epilepsy Council of Australia, which is the Australian chapter of the International Bureau for Epilepsy, a key player in the World Health Organisation’s global campaign, has asked parliament to work with it to develop a national strategy for epilepsy. A national epilepsy working party should be established—and the member for Shortland has already spoken on that. It would include representation from the Joint Epilepsy Council of Australia, which could act as a key advisory body. The Joint Epilepsy Council further asks that the working party be given the resources to oversee a national public education program in tandem with an applied social research program to ensure the right messages are being targeted to the right people.

Research reports that were sent to members of the last parliament by the Joint Epilepsy Council of Australia demonstrated how important it is to look beneath the surface when investigating issues like stigma, isolation, depression and any of the other burdens associated with epilepsy. Why does one football club allow a player with epilepsy to participate in the team when in another town a player with epilepsy may be left out of the team—and to all intents and purposes left out of the life of his peer group? Why do people who have seizures take the risks they do? Why do they keep standing up, going out in public, driving to the supermarket, taking part in sport, attempting to study and all the rest of it, when a seizure could put an end to what they are doing with unexpected and unpredicted ferocity? What are the relative risks for people living with epilepsy compared to those for people with other health conditions?

Social inclusion is at the very heart of this government. The motion moved by the member for Shortland is congruent with the values and spirit of social inclusion. I commend this motion to the House.

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