Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a really terrifying thought, but last year on average one little boy or little girl drowned every week. Drowning is the No. 1 preventable killer of toddlers in Australia. For parents, the really scary thing is that it can happen so quietly and so quickly: one moment they are playing, and the next moment they are at the bottom of the pool. Every day the lives of young Australians are being put at risk with so many private swimming pools lacking basic safety requirements and posing potential deathtraps to toddlers. Behind the drowning statistics are the sad stories of young lives cut tragically short and grieving families left to mourn their loss.

I have seen how devastating the loss of a child can be through one family in my constituency: Katherine and Andrew Plint, who lived in Laidley, and lost their daughter Hannah almost two years ago. On 4 October 2007, at nearly three years of age, Katherine and Andrew’s daughter Hannah climbed onto a chair in the backyard of their family home, unlocked the gate to the family pool and fell into the pool. Tragically, Hannah died within minutes of dragging the plastic chair to the pool gate. Hannah died in a non-compliant, unapproved, above-ground pool that her parents had purchased with their home in October 2006. Hannah’s parents loved their daughter and would have done anything to ensure her safety. They thought the pool was compliant. It was only following her death that they discovered that their backyard pool was built illegally, no application had been submitted to the council to build the pool and no compliance checks were ever undertaken. This tragic incident impacted enormously on their family and the wider community.

With the grief of Hannah’s passing, the Plints turned to helping those in need. They established Hannah’s Foundation—drowning prevention, awareness and support. It is a registered charity. Commissioner Bob Atkinson, the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, is the patron. The Plints have struggled and strained and advocated for pool legislation reform following their daughter’s coronial inquest. They have urged the state government and the federal government to overhaul a 20-year-old law.

One death by drowning is one death too many. A national drowning and prevention awareness memorial day would be appropriate to raise community awareness about the risks of drowning and to remember the young lives lost.

The Plints have asked me to thank the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, for her message of support and her condolences on their memorial day on 4 October, which I had the privilege of attending in Laidley. In view of the wonderful advocacy of the Plints, it would be appropriate in the circumstances if 4 October could be set aside each year as the memorial day. Whilst it is important to teach our children to swim, it is crucial we equip our schools to provide CPR and first aid. This will save lives. Shockingly, in Queensland alone, reports show that up to 100,000 private swimming pools are failing basic safety requirements. Each of these pools is a potential death trap. We need to change the laws. Currently, in Queensland alone, there are approximately 11 different confusing sets of pool laws. An expert panel has recommended this be simplified to ensure we comply with the latest Australian standards. If we can do the Building the Education Revolution nationally and deal with the states and territories, we can ensure, along with the national curriculum, that we have a national approach to reform in this regard.

I commend Andrew and Katherine for their wonderful advocacy. Ken Chandler, who is also a constituent of mine, is the Executive Director of the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia. He advocates that pools should be safety audited every two years. Ken has a long history of involvement in sporting organisations, particularly in the area of swimming, where he helps young people in the Ipswich and West Moreton areas to learn about how to protect themselves and about water safety. One death is just too many for young people. Those of us who are parents in this place love our children. If we can help people like the Plints, we need to do everything we can to ensure a national approach to this issue. State reform has failed and council reform has failed. A national approach is required and a national day is appropriate under the circumstances. I put this motion before the House to ensure there are no parents having to go through what the Plints went through—the pain, the agony, the depression and the recrimination. In all these circumstances, I commend the motion to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, let me congratulate the member for raising this issue on water safety and acknowledge his thoughtful and constructive comments. There are many practical and commonsense proposals contained in there. The motion refers to the Australian water safety strategy for 2008-11. I note that the key target of the strategy is to halve the number of drowning deaths by 50 per cent by 2020. It is a challenging target and, when you consider the complex issues which contribute to our annual drowning toll, it will require a true partnership between individuals, community groups, the business sector and governments at all levels to achieve that goal.

In 2007-08, the national drowning toll was 261, which represented a small decrease on the previous year. I attended the launch of the national drowning report in this place last year and the trends that were revealed are a guide to the approach being taken by the Australian Water Safety Council in the development of its strategy. Those trends are quite clear. Men are three times more likely to drown than women, with young men overrepresenting those statistics and often with alcohol involved in the tragedy. Toddlers aged zero to five are also overrepresented in the toll, with 27 children drowning in that year—a constant reminder for parents about vigilance in the pool maintenance and other controls referred to by the previous speaker. With an ageing population, we need to develop better strategies to ensure that older people are safe when they enjoy boating, swimming or fishing activities.

Most drowning deaths are preventable, as can be seen by the success of the surf lifesaving movement throughout Australia. In Victoria alone, there are about 55 surf lifesaving clubs which provide patrols in the peak summer months. Last year, those clubs saved an estimated 1,000 lives in Victoria. I know from personal experience that surf lifesaving clubs can play a critical role in preventing drowning deaths. In fact, three of my young children are involved in the Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club nippers program, where they are taught surf skills and first aid. Providing these volunteer organisations with quality rescue equipment and facilities with which to teach first aid and treat patients are all critical elements of the effort to reduce the national drowning toll.

Many large corporations already make significant donations to such volunteer activity, and I believe governments at all levels can always do better in this regard. The club members themselves are often highly motivated and take a great deal of pride in their efforts to educate young people about surf safety, rescue techniques and first aid. But they could do with more help from government bodies. To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever drowned at a patrolled Victorian beach whilst swimming between the flags. It is with that in mind that I support the general thrust of the motion before the House. There is no question that most drownings are preventable. Yes, they are always tragic and, yes, they often occur as a result of misfortune or accidents, but with better prevention measures, better planning and preparation and increased vigilance drownings are almost always preventable.

Time prevents me from expanding upon each point raised by the member for Blair but I would like to make a few general observations. Any strategy that is undertaken to implement a national rural and regional swimming program to better equip parents, carers and children in isolated communities must consider the socio-economic factors. In many of our rural and regional communities the cost of attending swimming lessons—assuming there is a suitable facility nearby—often prevents participation by low income earners and their families, particularly amongst the Indigenous community. A strategy that makes it more affordable, particularly for preschool age children, to attend a recognised training course is a vital step towards making young children safer around water.

I also take up the point in relation to providing assistance to schools and other education facilities so they are fully resourced to provide CPR and first aid training, and they are also better able to educate students on water safety measures. This is a positive initiative put forward in the motion and it reflects a policy position that I actually helped to develop myself for the Victorian Nationals in the lead up to the 2006 Victorian state election.

Increasing the awareness of basic first aid will save lives and it is important that these skills are regularly upgraded, particularly as new treatment methods are developed. There are often changes to the treatment of various ailments as new information comes to hand and those of us who learned CPR as recently as just five years ago may not be aware that the preferred system of breaths and compressions has also changed in recent times. More generally, there needs to be increased education in the community about the changing nature of conditions on Australian beaches and other waterways. Those of us who are familiar with the beach environment know that conditions change quickly from hour to hour but many tourists or people from various ethnic and cultural groups may have little understanding of the dangers which exist on our beaches.

There have been many tragic drownings in Victoria in recent years where multiple members of the same family group have been victims as they have got into difficulties and those seeking to assist have also perished. We are seeing circumstances where a group have got into difficulty in the surf and the others have gone in to try and achieve a rescue situation and more than two or three members of the same family have passed away.

Of course, the ongoing drought has meant that conditions in our rivers, lakes and dams have also changed considerably and may pose a drowning risk to those who assume their favourite watering hole in unchanged from summer to summer. I support the general thrust of the motion before the House and see great merit in improving education, awareness and assistance for anti-drowning activities across our nation.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the contribution to the debate by both previous speakers, particularly the member for Blair for bringing this ever-so-important motion to the parliament tonight, and I do not think there would be a member in this House that did not support the sentiments that are expressed in this motion. Each and every year, particularly in the summer months, we hear of the drowning of young children in backyard pools. We hear about people who are swept out into the ocean when swimming where they should not be swimming. Time and time again we reflect on how this can be prevented.

The new Australian Water Safety Strategy was launched October last year and it was aimed at reducing drowning by 50 per cent. It was interesting to note the figures from the Royal Life Saving Association in their National Drowning Report 2007 which showed that 277 Australians died during 2006-07. That is a lot of Australians that have lost their lives and all of these deaths are preventable. There are some drastic steps that are needed to reduce the number of drowning fatalities and aquatic related injuries. That is the one aspect that this motion does not pick up on: for every child that drowns there are a number of other children that suffer and who are affected for the rest of their lives because they almost drowned.

The Shortland electorate is a coastal electorate. It is an electorate where the lifesaving movement is very strong. There are a number of excellent surf lifesaving clubs within the electorate: Redhead, Belmont Swansea, Caves Beach, Catherine Hill Bay and the lakes. Each of these surf lifesaving clubs actually patrol those beaches and make them safe for the people that live in our area or who visit there on weekends or during the holiday period. It is also an area that attracts a lot of visitors.

There are very long stretches of surf and not all of the beaches are patrolled. You only have to walk along the beach to see that quite often there are nearly as many people swimming outside the flags as inside the flags. Yet the surf lifesaving clubs in my area—and I know in other regions as well—manage to pretty much keep that whole area safe and prevent people from drowning and losing their lives. So I think that one aspect of this motion that really needs to be noted here in this parliament tonight is the fine work that is done by surf lifesaving clubs, in the Shortland electorate and throughout Australia, in patrolling the beaches and preventing drownings, as well as visiting schools, providing education to students and teaching them about water safety. As has been previously identified, there are three key areas: children under five, which are those affected by the backyard pool drownings; men and alcohol—and I would say it is not only men and alcohol; people who are in that risk-taking age who do not take the proper care; and older people, 55-plus, and I must say I am in that category and, as a person that loves the surf and loves swimming, I will be a little bit more mindful of that now.

Another thing that I think is really important is emphasising water safety and making sure that every child learns to swim. From a very early age, children can be taught water safety. They need to be taken to the pool, they need to be taught to swim and they need to be taught survival techniques so that, if they fall in the pool, at least they can get themselves to the edge. Learning to swim can be quite expensive. I think it is really important that access to swimming lessons be made available to all children, because it will save our community a lot of money in the future. I commend the motion to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is absolutely no doubt that we are all dedicated to the elimination of all deaths in Australia by drowning. As a father I feel very strongly about this, as do all members of the parliament who are parents or responsible adults. So I would like to commend the member for Blair for raising this important issue and allowing us to focus on this current situation. As a parent I feel very strongly about it. It was only in the last 12 months that we allowed our 10-year-old to go swimming at a friend’s pool party, and that was only after being completely confident about the adult supervision from other parents. She attended swimming lessons with our school over the last two weeks. She went for her level eight achievement and, I found out this evening, she passed that. My six-year-old daughter also undertook swimming lessons and passed level five, so I am very proud, but there is no way in the foreseeable future that my six-year-old will be going anywhere near the water without me or my wife. The fact that I consider both my daughters to be very good swimmers does not ever allow me to fully relax or not be there when they are swimming. Children, of course, are much more vulnerable to drowning than adults. An unexpected mouthful of water or being out of their depth can cause them to panic, and their skills are not so ingrained as to be automatic when under pressure. The point is that when children are swimming adults can never fully relax.

I note that in this motion there are a number of suggestions for the federal government about first aid and safety training laws and swimming lessons as well as better awareness. I absolutely support the concept of an awareness day to focus Australians on this tragic and enduring problem. Yet I believe that in Western Australia the state laws and the by-laws of the local government are effective. The pool and spa fencing requirements are up to date and reflect an appropriate safety standard. The way I see it, national standards would not be any better than state prescribed standards and local government checks and enforcement. I worry that trying to impose a federal legislative enforcement regime will be more difficult not more effective. There is no doubt that fencing rules are required, but I cannot see that pool owner training and certification including resuscitation will be possible to achieve.

The point I come back to is that of parental or carer responsibility. That is the bottom line of all preventative action. Parents ensure their child’s safety and that is the key. It comes down to knowing where your child is at all times. That may be harsh but it must be recalled that drowning of children can and does occur in places that are not pools or spas. The family bathtub is an example of where supervision of young children is critical and no amount of regulation can make up for that. Similarly, there is the modern common suburb feature of a lake or pond in close proximity to houses. In the rural areas dams and water tanks are common. These are risks to children that cannot be remedied by fencing or the regulating of owners. There is no doubt that I do favour the current arrangements of fencing and inspections in Western Australia, but children can get to bodies of water, either in or near to the home, and they can climb fences in many cases. Children have done so in the past and it has resulted in some drownings. The one and only sure thing to prevent a child drowning is effective adult supervision.

It would be wrong of me not to mention the point raised in the motion regarding CPR and first-aid training. In Western Australia secondary school students are required to conduct 20 hours of volunteer work; I would suggest that CPR and first-aid courses could count towards such a requirement. In general terms, I support grants to effective organisations that have profile and expertise in these areas—the Red Cross, Surf Life Saving Australia and the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia. I particularly advocate for the Royal Life Saving Society’s Keep Watch program. As a Keep Watch ambassador myself I would say that the four Keep Watch strategies are very effective at protecting children. Those four strategies are to supervise your child, to provide barriers to water locations, to familiarise your child with water and to learn resuscitation. Ultimately, it comes down to parental responsibility, though.

As I said at the start of my contribution, there is no doubt that we all support better water safety. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak on the subject and applaud the member for Blair for raising it. I believe that the regulations and controls in place at state and local government levels are appropriate. I would, however, support making it easier for CPR and first-aid courses to be undertaken and, of course, any profile that can be given to the issue, with an important emphasis on the responsibility of parents and carers to do their job and keep watch over their children.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start by thanking the member for Blair for bringing this important issue to the attention of the parliament tonight. Water safety is a critical community issue across the country. You would not know it from the weather outside today; however, we enjoy a popular beach and water sport culture and we, as a government, have an obligation to promote water safety and commit to minimising the number of drowning deaths that we have in this country. Disturbingly, despite much of the hard work and positive results achieved over the past 10 years—a testament to all those who contributed to that: the various water safety agencies, community groups, individuals and government—over the last 12 months that appears to have been eroded with an increase in the number of drowning deaths.

Recently drowning deaths have increased and the record indicates that in 2007 alone there were approximately 270 deaths across Australia in swimming pools and rivers and at beaches. New South Wales recorded the highest number of deaths. Males are three times more likely to drown than women. These statistics tell only a small part of the problem. Every fatality causes untold grief to the family and friends of loved ones. The trauma is not only isolated to the immediate victims and their families; there is the collateral damage and the effect on many of our emergency services, and community groups, volunteers et cetera every time they attend such shocking incidents.

It is a fight that we can never totally win, but there are many things that we can and must do. We start by saying that the government wholly supports the Australian Water Safety Strategy 2008-2011 and the Australian Water Safety Council’s aspirational goal to reduce the current number of Australian drowning deaths by 50 per cent by 2020. Some would say that this is an ambitious undertaking; however, I strongly believe that it is achievable. Certainly, through collaborative effort, coordination and goodwill amongst various agencies, I think this is something that we as a society can achieve.

To reverse the upward trend we must take urgent steps to build upon the knowledge that we have gained from previous water safety campaigns. In order to achieve a significant reduction in the number of deaths, the Australian Water Safety Council has identified three key drivers which will form the basis of the strategy. They include taking a life stages perspective, targeting high-risk locations and meeting key drowning challenges, particularly for those at-risk groups, such as Indigenous and other culturally and linguistically diverse communities across Australia.

As the member for Blair indicated in his motion, in order to prevent drowning deaths, we must allocate resources towards the major causes of drowning. The general community has a responsibility to contribute to the overall goal. That is something that we can all work towards. The Australian Water Safety Strategy seeks to do this by building awareness of the dangers of aquatic environments and by arming the community with the lifesaving skills necessary to prevent and to rescue. I note that in order to make a positive difference all parties with an interest and a stake in water safety must pull together to reduce drownings in our community. I offer my full support for the suggestion by my colleague the member for Blair of a national drowning day to promote water safety as well as to commemorate those that we have lost tragically through drowning deaths.

In the short time I have left to speak tonight I would like to quickly add that I am currently speaking with Royal Lifesaving Australia regarding a program for members of this House to gain their bronze medallion. The initiative would allow members to develop the level of knowledge, judgement, technical and physical ability required to carry out a safe water rescue. Equally important, they can demonstrate in their electorates their commitment to water safety by reducing the death toll. This is something that we parliamentarians can be part of. Royal Lifesaving Australia is very enthusiastic about delivering the training here in the parliamentary pool, and I would encourage all members to participate in this program. Finally, I would like to congratulate all those involved in this landmark strategy. I think the member for Blair has done well by raising this matter tonight. (Time expired)

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two young heroes in the Gold Coast from All Saints school, Lachlan Vernon, who is 12, and his sister, Josephine, who is 14, in early May heard a man scream, ‘Does anyone know CPR?’ These two young students rushed down to a pool at about 3.30 pm to find that a young boy, eight years old, had been pulled from the pool by this man, but he did not know CPR. Lachlan and Josephine commenced CPR, as they had been taught at school, and put him in the recovery position, saving this little eight-year-old boy’s life. This is the story of two Gold Coast heroes from All Saints Anglican School. It is the story of an eight-year-old little boy who will live to grow up to play sport and hopefully one day get married and have kids of his own.

There have been 424 drownings of children aged zero to five since 1997-98—that is, in the last 10 years. And that is 424 too many. Campaigns such as Laurie Lawrence’s Kids Alive program have been instrumental in reducing the number of drowning fatalities and educating children and parents on pool and water safety. Since its inception, the Kids Alive show has been seen in 545 country towns and 44 remote communities and has been watched by over 225,000 children in Australia. It is also sad to note that there are something like 6½ thousand near drownings each year.

I support any creation of a national drowning and prevention awareness and memorial day. I support anything that will bring attention to these dreadful and horrifying statistics and encourage people to familiarise themselves with prevention techniques. I have a four-year-old son and a two-year-old son and another child on the way. The horror of losing a child in a drowning would be simply unimaginable, and I support anything that will empower parents, educate them, and encourage them to know what to do should the unthinkable happen.

Assisting schools in teaching their students CPR by introducing first aid as part of a school’s curriculum is an outstanding idea and will certainly ensure that tens of thousands of young adults who would normally not know how to perform what is a simple action will be able to do it correctly. It is interesting that most adults actually believe they know how to do CPR, yet testing by industry has shown that only about 50 per cent of them, when push comes to shove, actually do. Proper education, combined with vigilance and great parenting, saves lives.

Establishing a national code for pool compliance, including the need for all pool owners to be trained and certified in CPR, also makes a great deal of sense. As Laurie Lawrence says: ‘Fence the pool; shut the gate; teach your kids to swim—it’s great; supervise—watch your mate; and learn how to resuscitate.’ It is somewhat catchy, it is five simple steps and it makes an enormous amount of sense. Likewise, a national program of water safety would certainly ensure that not only the same message was learnt by everyone but also the right message is taught.

As well intentioned and well meaning as all these actions are—and they certainly enjoy my whole-hearted support—nothing will ever replace the vigilance of parents. Nothing will replace the supervision by parents to ensure that fences are properly constructed, the gates closed and, indeed, that self-locking mechanisms close by themselves. Only on Saturday I went round and checked all the locking mechanisms on our gates around the pool to make sure that they would close automatically within a second after I walked through them. Nothing will replace supervision by parents, and nothing should. But, if appropriate and sensible measures can be put in place to assist parents and to ensure that others in the community know what to do in the time of an emergency, that certainly makes sense. Then, if the unthinkable happens, if the tragedy does occur where a child is found at the bottom of a pool, then we can be assured that young heroes like Lachlan and Josephine Vernon from All Saints Anglican School will have been trained and taught to know what to do. I certainly commend the motion to the House.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support this motion which recognises the importance of reducing water drowning deaths in Australia. I commend the member for Blair for moving it. The importance of drowning prevention and education programs cannot be overestimated. Our earliest records put the Australian rate of drowning by death as high as 8.76 deaths per 100,000 people in 1920. In today’s terms this rate would equate to approximately 1,800 drowning deaths per annum. A program of life-saving water safety drowning prevention and community action has resulted in a rate of less than two deaths per 100,000 population, or approximately 270 drowning deaths, in 2008. While we can congratulate the many people who worked so hard to bring about that reduction, every death is one too many. We must always remember that, the better we do in this area, the less visible will be the repercussions of a lack of action.

We all know of the surf-lifesaving associations in Australia—some of our great volunteer organisations that patrol our many beaches. Perhaps we are less aware of the work of the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, which works very hard to train community people and people working in the aquatic industry about safety. I am pleased to inform the House that an incredibly important piece of water safety infrastructure is about to be built in my electorate of Parramatta. Last month it was my pleasure to turn the first sod for the new $6.5 million Royal Life Saving Society New South Wales aquatic training facility to be built at the Hills Sports High School at Seven Hills. The Australian government has contributed $3 million to this project in partnership with the Royal Life Saving Society New South Wales.

The National Aquatic Safety Training Academy will be the first of its kind not only in New South Wales but in Australia. The academy will be a benchmark facility for the delivery of the highest quality vocational education and training in Australia, and I cannot imagine a more important area for this facility to be built. The new facility will enable the Royal Life Saving Society to continue to deliver high-quality water safety education programs. It will provide both recreation and vocational education and training programs to all members of the community, including students, teachers and parents, workers in emergency services and members of the aquatic and recreational industries.

The academy will also provide the society’s mobile Indigenous training unit with a central base to carry out Indigenous-specific initiatives adapted to meet the various needs of the Indigenous and culturally linguistically diverse communities in Western Sydney. Again, this is a great location in Seven Hills, next door to Blacktown, which has the largest urban population of Indigenous people in the country. It is also the centre of a growing, culturally diverse community where the children of migrants are less likely to—

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.