Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

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That the motion be amended to read—That the House:

(1)    notes that:

(a) Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is an overarching term used to describe a range of physical, mental, behavioural, learning and development disorders that can result from foetal exposure to alcohol; and

(b) FASD is reported to be the greatest cause of non-inherited, irreversible and permanent brain damage to new-borns in Australia; and

(2)    calls upon the Australian:

(a) Parliament to continue to facilitate and support the development of a FASD national diagnostic tool for the use of medical professionals and other health service providers; and

(b) Government to:

  (i) give those with FASD access to disability support funding and services, where appropriate;

  (ii) institute a campaign to raise community awareness of the risks to the unborn child when alcohol is consumed in pregnancy and highlight the potential cognitive and developmental consequences for affected individuals as these pertain to service providers, law enforcement and justice, the community sector and education; and

(iii) give support to the development of models of care and helping strategies for families and individuals dealing with the impacts of FASD.

Alcohol consumption in Australia is a widely accepted and long-standing part of our culture. It features in special celebrations. It is what we do to celebrate winning, a birth, even deaths. It is an important adjunct to dining out and it is a true marker of hospitality and friendly interaction amongst many populations and most individuals in Australia. What you drink, when you drink and how much alcohol you consume is supposed to mark you as a sophisticate or a knockabout type. Getting drunk, for some, for the first time is a rite de passage.

Drinking a little alcohol is not a health problem. It is, however, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. If you drink when you are pregnant you are literally gambling with the welfare of your unborn child. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is the term used to describe a range of physical, mental, behavioural and learning disabilities that are a direct result of consuming alcohol during pregnancy.

Alcohol can harm an unborn baby in different ways at different times during a pregnancy. Alcohol is a neurotoxin and teratogin, meaning it is an agent which can cause birth defects and permanent brain damage in the foetus. The alcohol deprives the developing brain of oxygen and destroys the brain cells which in turn affects the growth, the structure and the function of the brain in the newborn. Alcohol consumption will affect the developing cells and organs differently depending on the stages of the pregnancy. In the first three months when the baby's organs are being formed alcohol exposure can cause a smaller head, heart defects, limb damage, bone formation defects, kidney damage, eye problems, hearing problems and facial abnormalities. All or some of these outcomes may result.

This is why the 2009 National Health and Medical Research Council's recommendations are for zero alcohol consumption for women who are planning a pregnancy or who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Tragically, these recommendations are a best-kept secret when it comes to many women and some health service professionals who should know better than to assure pregnant women that 'a little bit will not hurt you'. Some Australian research undertaken in 2006 found 34 per cent of women consumed alcohol in Australia in their most recent pregnancy. Other researchers suggested this figure could be as high as 60 per cent. In a 2003 survey at Lyell McEwen Hospital in South Australia, 80 per cent, or 70 women in all, reported consuming alcohol during pregnancy. Recent surveys have shown us rates of risky drinking are increasing in non-Indigenous women in Western Australian women of child-bearing age.

FASD is not curable. However, with early diagnosis and special support, children and adults with this condition can be helped to a better life. Our motion is about supporting as much as communicating and making sure those who should be delivering services to those in need are better resourced and know the job they have to do. The carers can be supported to have a better life and to have better strategies as they try to manage the condition in their loved ones, a condition which is incurable and lifelong.

This motion, which is bipartisan supported, aims to lift the lid on the effects of alcohol on the unborn and put the problem squarely in the limelight. We need to move away from the nonsense about a little bit will not hurt and have women and their partners understand that for nine months at least it is important not to gamble with the future, the lifetime of your child. We have pretended that drinking while you are pregnant is not a problem for far too long. We have ignored what Canada, the United States and most other developed nations have recognised and have been substantially investing in for years, and that is programs to educate and inform, programs to diagnose and programs to support those who are affected by FASD. We have a population of damaged children who are being misdiagnosed and misunderstood. Many of them are incarcerated and they remain unsupported because the condition is not acknowledged for the purposes of disability support. Our motion calls on that support to be given.

Our police and courts, teachers, doctors, nurses and other health service professionals are not sufficiently educated to understand the condition and its effects on individuals. Some may be, but are embarrassed to tell a mother of a newborn in difficulty that it was her drinking that may have caused the problem. Therefore there is much misdiagnosis and children with FASD are often labelled instead as autistic. This does not help when it comes to support services. We must understand that in order to change the rights of a child to be born without a preventable disability we have to make sure there is no misinformation in the community and no lack of understanding about what has to be done.

This motion calls for the support for those with FASD and their carers. Effective support includes special education, vocational programs, special tutoring and structured environments to minimise distress and antisocial behaviour.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives

Sitting suspended from 12:05 to 12:36

As I was saying before the division, this motion calls for support for those with FASD and their carers. Effective support includes special education, vocational programs, special tutoring and structured environments to minimise the distress, particularly in relation to antisocial behaviour and lifelong care. This motion calls for a national communications effort that will ensure that every woman and girl is aware of the connection between alcohol consumption and the chance that their baby will be born with incurable and permanent brain and other damage.

One of the problems in our country is that young girls are increasingly likely to binge drink. Those young girls put themselves into a situation where they may become pregnant and often it is many months before they realise their pregnancy. This of course is a serious problem for the unborn, for the developing foetus if those girls continue to drink, in particular to binge drink, during that first trimester. That is why it is so important that we have our population understanding the impacts, the connections between alcohol and developing foetuses and the fact that no drinking is indeed the only way to be absolutely sure that your child will not be affected by alcohol as it grows and develops in the womb. As I said before, the problem at the moment is that we have a growing culture of younger girls drinking and at the same time behaving in higher risk situations, also taking drugs and certainly not using contraception.

We already have some wine and beer companies voluntarily adding health warnings to their alcohol containers, bottles and cans. We need all of the sellers of alcohol to do that. It is an irony that in Australia we have some companies who have been exporting their wine for years in particular to California and other places in the United States adding the label warning that alcohol is a danger when pregnant but not using such a label in Australia. We need young Australians approaching puberty to understand the connections and we need to offer support to women and girls with a drinking problem who may become pregnant. We need also to ensure that their partners and boys of the same age—in fact the whole of our population—understands the connections between alcohol consumption during pregnancy and the dangers.

I have not mentioned Indigenous drinking to this point and nor do I want ever to let it be understood or believed that FASD is a problem specifically of Indigenous communities or populations throughout the world, because it is not. But the realities are that a lot of our Indigenous communities are drinking to excess. Alcohol is a real problem for a lot of our women and girls in Indigenous communities. I commend the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and also this federal government, because already there are some incidence surveys being undertaken in places like Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek in Western Australia where the women of those communities have understood the damage being done by alcohol to their generations and have asked for support, firstly, in identifying how many of their children are affected and then how those children can be better supported to live as good a life as possible.

The tragedy for Indigenous communities is that their culture is transmitted through oral tradition and learning. It is not book learning. It is not a written down culture. If a generation of young children or a big number of them cannot learn, cannot in fact remember, or become fluent in reading, cannot participate in a ceremony and the traditional knowledge that they are expected as Aboriginal people to understand and transmit, if that cannot happen then it is in fact another form of cultural genocide. I think it is extraordinarily important that we understand that for Indigenous communities, particularly traditional Indigenous communities still with their culture, that they are given special help to make sure that alcohol is not the problem it now is.Women, whether or not they are Indigenous, need to be given special support if in fact they have a drinking problem.

I strongly commend this motion. I also commend Ministers Macklin and Nicola Roxon, who have supported this motion in the discussion. I am very grateful for the bipartisan support that we have had both in the Senate and now I trust in the House of Representatives. This is a problem that belongs to all Australians. It is one that has probably been with us since 1788. It is a problem that has no cure once a child has in fact been born with the effects of alcohol consumption, but it is a problem that we can prevent in the future and we can make sure those with the condition of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder have a better life, because there is better support possible for them and better understanding of their condition.

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