Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I am here in the chamber today to talk on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing report on the inquiry into the health benefits of breastfeeding. I would like to start by thanking the committee secretariat for their incredibly hard work on a very complex report that was put together in a very short time. I want to thank our committee secretary, Mr James Catchpole, who attended pretty much all of the public hearings we had; Pauline Brown, who is here in the chamber today and who did a wonderful job of pulling together the information on a very complex, very sensitive matter in a very comprehensive way; Meg Byrne, who also served on the committee as research officer for a period of time; and Lauren Walker, who served as administrative officer. The secretariat really did keep us on track with what was a very complex topic. I also want to acknowledge the almost 500 submitters to this inquiry. I have served on a number of inquiries in my time in parliament but this one attracted a large number of submissions. It certainly attracted a large amount of interest, and I want to thank and acknowledge the many people—including the Australian Breastfeeding Association from my own electorate in Ballarat—who put in very comprehensive submissions to this inquiry. I also want to acknowledge the chair of the committee, Alex Somlyay, who I would have to say—having served under a number of chairs—is probably one of the best chairs I have worked with. I want to thank him for his courage on a very emotional and very difficult topic. Alex really embraced this topic and was at every hearing. He learnt an enormous amount through the time as chair. I think the recommendations strongly reflect his position and his views on this matter. I want to thank him for providing me and the member for Shortland, as members of this committee, with a really great opportunity. Alex embodies what we all like to see in chairs. For those of us in opposition he really is someone who has been very good to work with.

I want to start in this debate by recognising that the topic of breastfeeding engenders enormous amounts of emotion. A lot of guilt, a lot of anger and a lot of emotion poured out of the submissions we received to this inquiry. As members of parliament, the way we had to tackle this inquiry was by recognising the emotions that existed around this topic but also by removing ourselves from that and looking at the science and at the facts. We had to look at what the evidence and the science were saying in relation to breastfeeding. I want to refer a little bit to the report. The evidence on breastfeeding is extremely strong. The reason the World Health Organisation and our own National Health and Medical Research Council have dietary guidelines for breastfeeding is that the science is quite strong. There is significant evidence to suggest that the rates of breastfeeding in Australia are not where they could be or where they possibly should be, but I will start off particularly with the science in relation to breastfeeding. The report states:

There is solid evidence for the protective effects of breastfeeding against three classes of infectious disease in babies: gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory tract infections, and otitis media (middle ear infections).

Also:

Exclusive breastfeeding appears to confer a greater protective effect against gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses, while partial or minimal breastfeeding is not as protective.

There is also evidence that:

The incidence of asthma and allergies may also be reduced by breastfeeding for longer.

And:

Some studies suggest that breastfeeding could also have a positive effect on a child’s neurodevelopment—

although there is some concern still about that evidence. The report also says:

Breastfeeding may help to prevent a number of other conditions including some childhood leukaemias, urinary tract infections, inflammatory bowel disease, coeliac disease and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). There is also evidence of possible associations between breastfeeding and lower rates of dental occlusion, bacteraemia, meningitis and type 1 diabetes. Further research is required to determine the significance of these associations.

But there is certainly evidence out there. The report also says:

Strong evidence is accumulating to show that children are less likely to be overweight or obese if they have been breastfed as babies. Babies who are breastfed for at least three months have a lower rate of obesity during childhood, with the protective effect increasing if breastfeeding continues until six months. This protective effect may also extend into adulthood.

…            …            …

Evidence also suggests that breastfeeding protects against a range of chronic illnesses which can develop in adulthood, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease … and high blood pressure.

The scientific evidence certainly is quite compelling on breastfeeding. It particularly talks about breastfeeding exclusively for at least six months with further protective effects being available when breastfeeding continues beyond six months, but the evidence really does concentrate on exclusive breastfeeding up to six months. As parliamentarians, our job is not to judge the choices that women make about breastfeeding but to look at the science. What are the health benefits? What does science say about breastfeeding? We need to look at the incidence of breastfeeding in Australia. The evidence is compelling that breastfeeding has such a protective impact on children’s health and adult health into later life.

The rates of breastfeeding that we looked at across the country really were of concern. Whilst the Commonwealth does have a national breastfeeding strategy, it has not implemented many of the measures in that strategy. Also, financial resources have not been associated or attached to that strategy as would warrant the evidence that we saw in relation to breastfeeding. The data that we looked at in the report says that the rates coming out of hospital are really encouraging. Approximately 83 per cent of babies are being breastfed on discharge from hospital, but that drops—based on the 2001 figures—to around 48 per cent of all children being breastfed by the age of six months. So really the job of the inquiry was to look at the question: if the science is so compelling about the health benefits of breastfeeding, what do we as parliamentarians need to do to encourage breastfeeding? There are a number of recommendations that we came up with. As I said, it was not the job of the committee to make judgements about women’s choices; the job of the committee was to look at the health benefits of breastfeeding and what we as a parliament do and we as a government have responsibility for. The recommendations go into the development ‘of a national strategy to promote and support breastfeeding in Australia’, including a role for the Commonwealth to provide ‘leadership in the area of monitoring, surveillance and evaluation of breastfeeding data’.

Currently, the breastfeeding data that is available in this country is inadequate. There is a lot of inconsistency in the definitions that are used and we really did struggle during the inquiry to determine exactly what the breastfeeding rates were with those different definitions. The Department of Health and Ageing has developed a national system of monitoring of breastfeeding in Australia and the committee recommended that that be implemented. We also recommended that there needed to be further research into the ‘long-term health benefits of breastfeeding for mother and infant’ and that there needed to be a solid ‘evaluation of strategies to increase the rates of exclusive breastfeeding to six months’. The committee heard a great deal of evidence on the difficulties and barriers that many women face in continuing breastfeeding, particularly exclusively for six months. We think there are some terrific strategies out there that are working and we encourage research into and further evaluation of those strategies. We recommended:

That the Department of Health and Ageing fund research into best practice in programs that encourage breastfeeding, including education programs, and the coordination of these programs.

We also recommended that the Australian Breastfeeding Association be funded to expand its current breastfeeding helpline to become a toll-free national breastfeeding helpline. Again, many of the stories that the Australian Breastfeeding Association told us about the lack of advice and information available to women and the immediacy of that advice being available for women really was concerning. Having a funded national toll-free number available to more women would certainly assist in making that advice available. We acknowledge that the Commonwealth has put some money into the funding of a national education campaign. We think that needs to be broadened to look at the health benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and babies and also to look at the supportive role that the community can play in breastfeeding.

I encourage everybody to read the total report. There has been some commentary on some recommendations in the report. I encourage people to look at the entire report and understand that we have looked very closely at the difficulty women face in making these sorts of choices. We thought long and hard about the implementation of the MAIF agreement. I believe most strongly that the voluntary code is not working in this country and it really is a token effort. I encourage people to read the entire report. Again I thank the committee for their hard work.

Debate (on motion by Mr Wakelin) adjourned.