Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the motion moved by the member for Shortland and thank her and all the speakers who have risen to speak on this motion. It does us great credit in this House when we move things in a bipartisan manner, recognising the issues and concerns of our electorate and dealing with them in a mature way. The Federal Chamber is a nice place in which we can often do that, and it is a pity that the public does not get to see that more visible reality of the parliament working for the betterment of the nation.

Brain injury if often referred to as the invisible disability. The majority—three out of four—who acquire a brain injury will make a good physical recovery but will sustain often debilitating and permanent cognitive disabilities, including difficulties with memory and concentration, resulting in a reduced ability to learn, to plan and to solve problems. People with a brain injury are regularly thought unintelligent, unmotivated and uncooperative, which is doubly disabling. It is an invisible disability because there is often no outward physical appearance, but behavioural traits change. So people are given a label that indicates they have something wrong with them, but people do not understand the underlying cause. Also people say, 'You've recovered. Surely you should move on.' But all of us have known somebody who has suffered a stroke, and a lot of those disabilities stay with you for a long time.

So brain injury is the hidden disability. Brain injury, like a lot of other disabilities, tracks social locative disadvantage. People at the greatest risk of a brain injury are drawn from exactly the same population as those who are at risk from any other injury: from backgrounds of low income, low levels of education, high levels of unemployment, poor housing and so on. Often services for these individuals go missing because they are not in the suburbs where the individuals have greatest lobbying power. The 655,000 Australians that the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates have a brain injury are also radically under-represented in the disability service system. Brain Injury Australia fears for its hidden unknown number living at or beyond the margins: Indigenous Australians, the homeless, the incarcerated. One of the surprising statistics is the number of people in jails who have a acquired brain injury, as is those living at home being cared for by family and friends whose brain injury is unknown, undiagnosed and untreated.

There are over 20,000 hospitalised for traumatic brain injury every year in this country, and that is a staggering number. Between 2,000 and 3,000 of those moderate to severe injuries are associated with some manner of profound and permanent disability. It is a large statistic that often goes unnoticed. As Brain Injury Australia has found, many have concluded that lived experience of acquired disability is distinct and different from a cognitive, development disability. For many of the brain injury Australians, their brain injury is in the prime of their life, occurring right at the point of entry into adult life and the maximum expression of independence from family:

… in leaving home, adventuring in the world of work, embarking on further study. Instead, their injury becomes the watershed event of their life. Often just a moment, an instant, of—nothing more, or less—than inattention, than undue risk—their own—

or, tragically—

somebody else's—that moment, that instant divides their life in two. And coming to terms with the reality that the watershed cannot be completely bridged is often a lifelong struggle.

There is a girl and her phenomenal family who I have met with many times through the fantastic organisation called BrainLink that both I and the member for Bruce have had great dealings with for many years because of their extraordinary CEO Sharon Strugnell. The life of this girl, and that of her family, was ruined by a violent boyfriend. Her life was destroyed at the hands of someone who was meant to love her, and she has been confined to a wheelchair and to a life that will never be the same. Again, it happened in the prime of her life when she was just 20. But the family did have access to BrainLink and did have access to support and did have access to respite and information.

When many acquired brain injuries happen and people go into hospital, they do not know what to expect or where to go. BrainLink provides a service at hospital, and even at the children's hospital. A lot of children, through epilepsy and through other acts unknown, are faced with this lifelong change, and it is the families who need the support. BrainLink is one such service that I cannot speak more highly of for what they do. Every year I bang on a beanie—a very attractive look—for Brain Injury Awareness Week and to remember our brains and to pay attention to them.

Debate adjourned.

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