Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for this motion. I think it is a very important motion. Almost every member of this House will have had experience either on a personal basis or with family members, friends or constituents that have suffered from serious issues of allergy and therefore the risk of anaphylaxis.

It is an emerging and evolving problem in our society. Others are better qualified to define the cause, but the incidence is clear. We will all have our theories, and no doubt the exposure to different chemicals, different products and different elements of modern life contributes to this issue.

I want to proceed briefly in three phases: firstly, with a personal reflection; secondly, with a notion about the broader societal risk; and, thirdly, in terms of the solution. Let me deal with the personal reflection: my wife's goddaughter, Grace Diamond, is a beautiful girl in the upper levels of primary school on the Mornington Peninsula. She is extraordinarily artistic and bright but was born with a major allergy which, as she became a little older and travelled through her toddler years, was discovered to be a peanut allergy but at the extreme end. Whenever the family comes to our house there is a purging, as it were, of all items associated with nuts and, in particular, peanuts. The school, to its eternal credit, has adopted a no-nuts policy. We have this engagement with the family of this beautiful, young, highly intelligent girl but it is a broader issue to be aware of the threat that the family has to carry with them. Pens, which can be used for the immediate injection to deal with anaphylaxis, if it arises, put a different layer of responsibility on the problem. So it is not just an inconvenience for the parents; it is a great, lasting and abiding threat. This is part of a broader risk.

We know that around 20 per cent of cases of peanut allergy, for example, resolve but around 20 per cent of cases can become worse with time. About 60 per cent are stable. From the UK and the USA, we see that there has been a doubling of this one area of peanut allergy over five years. It is now estimated to affect one in 50 young infants, and we are seeing broader allergies with general nuts. The real issue here is that a minor problem can evolve into anaphylaxis. So there are two things we need to do going forward: one is education and two is a set of standards for our schools which are universally understood and which are at the appropriate level of protection. I thank the member for raising this issue. It has resonance in our family and resonance in our community. I think it is time for a national approach upon which we can all agree.

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