Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to advise the Senate of the Global Changing Diabetes Leadership Forum held in New York last week. I was fortunate enough to be a speaker at the forum and was honoured to meet the keynote speaker, former US President Bill Clinton. As many would be aware, I have type 1 diabetes and have had it since the age of 34. I learnt three lessons from the forum: firstly, that diabetes is a silent killer, a monster getting bigger and bigger, which requires an urgent response around our globe; secondly, that Australia is leading the pack in addressing this epidemic; and, thirdly, that there is still more to do.

The forum involved 150 to 200 politicians, senior representatives of governments, international organisations, patient organisations, healthcare professionals, academia and media from more than 18 countries. Why? Because diabetes is a world monster getting bigger and bigger. Diabetes is becoming the worst pandemic of the 21st century. Today already more than 246 million people worldwide have diabetes, with some 70 per cent in the Third World. This increases by seven million people every year, killing as many people as are dying from AIDS each year. At the present rate, this number will grow to more than 380 million people by 2025. Every 10 seconds someone in the world dies from diabetes and every 30 seconds someone has a limb amputated through diabetes.

As the communique from the forum said:

Action has to be taken now. There is an urgent need to change the course of diabetes by redefining healthcare and focus on the needs of people with diabetes.

The forum, sponsored by the international insulin supplier Novo Nordisk, was the follow-up to the historic United Nations resolution on diabetes achieved in December 2006. On 20 December 2006 the UN resolution was passed that specified that 14 November, the current World Diabetes Day, would be designated as a United Nations day to be observed every year, beginning in 2007; that World Diabetes Day should be observed in an appropriate manner to raise public awareness of diabetes, including through education and mass media; and that member states, including Australia, should be encouraged to develop national policies for the prevention, treatment and care of diabetes, taking into account internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals.

I was pleased to have been among those, particularly the Australian Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group, who successfully lobbied our government to be a signatory to the resolution, and I again thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, for his support in this regard. I and my Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group colleagues Judi Moylan and Mal Washer attended the conference as guests of Novo Nordisk. We also visited the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International in New York and received briefings on the latest technology developments and research. JDRFI expend substantial research dollars in Australia, and the partnership is appreciated.

Prior to the forum I was able to organise for our Australian delegation a meeting with the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations and former Senate colleague, the Hon. Robert Hill, to discuss the diabetes epidemic. It was most appreciated and a worthwhile and productive meeting. At the forum I met Governor Mike Huckabee, who has just finished two terms as Governor of Arkansas. Governor Huckabee is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and has lost over 120 pounds, or over 55 kilograms, through living a healthy lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise. The former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich also attended the forum. Governor Huckabee said that in Arkansas he introduced a system of body mass index benchmarking of children as a way of measuring their health and fitness and providing the information confidentially to parents. In his view the system was working well. This is a system which I have long advocated for Australia, and I will come back to that.

In terms of the briefings and meetings of the Australian delegation in New York, apart from the MPs I have mentioned, the delegation included Dr Gary Deed from Diabetes Australia, Professor Martin Silink of the International Diabetes Federation and Professor Stephen Colagiuri from Sydney, amongst others. I also took time to visit Cincinnati, Ohio, where I met two-term Governor Bob Taft and his wife, Mrs Hope Taft, together with Mrs Joan Taft. My former boss when I used to work in the United States at the Taft law firm was former senator Bob Taft, and we certainly enjoyed renewing our friendship.

During that time in Washington, DC, among other things I had briefings on the poppy industry, which is worth $65 million to Tasmanian farmers, and the future prospects for Tasmanian poppy growers and manufacturers; I had briefings on the US free trade agreement; and I provided a brief to the Family Research Council as well as accepting their invitation to appear on their syndicated radio show.

I will go back to the forum. The forum in New York achieved a great deal. Professor Martin Silink, President of the IDF, told the forum:

... the reality is that there will not be an automatic increase in funds for diabetes for either prevention or treatment in the short term.

And he promoted the merits of a global diabetes fund similar to the global fund for AIDS. I support the push for a global diabetes fund and believe it most worth while and achievable.

In my address to the forum I shared the Australian experience and said there was an urgency for governments to understand the link between the diabetes pandemic and the obesity epidemic and to react accordingly and promptly. I also called on the diabetes community to engage stakeholder groups such as the food and fast food industry and the health, education, media and advertising sectors in raising awareness and creating solutions. The reason is simple: one in five Australian children is overweight and one in 10 is obese. This is why I support BMI benchmark testing of children with the results provided confidentially to their parents. As I said at the forum and agree with the experts, if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. We benchmark our children’s numeracy and literacy; we should be benchmarking their health and fitness.

Former President Clinton told the forum that, if he had known back then as President what he knows now, he would have been far more proactive on issues such as childhood obesity. The former President said he wished he had focused more on the trend lines than on the headlines. I think that is a worthy lesson appropriate for all of us.

On a more positive note, what I discovered is that Australia leads the world in the diabetes fight and in acknowledging the nexus epidemic of childhood obesity. As I said in New York, the Howard government is moving to change what I call the ‘obesogenic environment Down Under’. In terms of our successes, we have a universal healthcare system and special arrangements for people with diabetes. We have a National Diabetes Services Scheme, which is costing over $100 million each year, or $667 million, which will be provided for the period 2006-07 to 2010-11—a very positive and appropriate investment indeed.

The Washington Post provided extensive coverage of the forum and reported me saying that Australia, along with the United States, was one of the fattest countries on earth and that diabetes is a monster that is getting bigger and bigger. I quote from the Washington Post:

Barnett said that with one in 10 Australian children now obese, the Australian Government has mandated healthy school lunches, and boosted funding for after-school physical activities programs.

That is not entirely correct because our government has provided financial support for healthy school lunches but it has not as yet mandated healthy school lunches. That is a matter for the state governments of Australia.

The Washington Post referred to my success with the Australian franchise fast-food giant McDonalds in encouraging them to make menus healthier and providing more healthy options. According to the Washington Post, former US President Clinton helped broker similar deals with food companies last year to keep unhealthy sodas and snacks out of American schools.

Australia’s response has been to lead the world in the fight against this pandemic. We have established diabetes as a national health priority. In 1996 we provided over $2 million for the National Diabetes Strategy. We have provided over $43 million over four years for the National Integrated Diabetes Program and, as I have said, we support the National Diabetes Services Scheme. We provide funds for the AusDiab survey and funds for research, including over $30 million over five years for research into type 1 diabetes. Finally, over $230 million was spent on the PBS for managing diabetes. The record is good but there is still more to do.