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

This morning the Parliamentary Heart Foundation and Stroke Foundation Friendship Group had a breakfast here in Parliament House. It was a very successful breakfast. Dr Lyn Roberts, the CEO of National Heart Foundation, addressed the breakfast, along with Juleen Cavanagh and Nicole Baxter. Juleen is a survivor of heart attack and Nicole Baxter is a cardiac nurse.

It was a very interesting morning. The member for Hasluck and I are the joint conveners of that committee. It was good to look at heart attack with the Heart Foundation's this morning. There was emphasis placed on the Heart Foundation's Go Red for Women campaign. They reiterated the fact that there is no single cause of heart disease, but risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and family history increase your chances of developing it.

Ninety per cent of Australian women have at least one risk factor for heart disease and 50 per cent have two or more. Nearly one in three women aged 30 to 65 have been told by a doctor that they have high blood pressure. That is 1.6 million women, but only one in 10 knows that it puts them at risk of heart disease—quite an alarming factor. Thirty per cent of women aged 30 to 65 have been told by a doctor they have high cholesterol, and there is no doubt whatsoever that high blood pressure or high cholesterol increases the risk of heart attack and heart disease. The Heart Foundation message is that women should know their personal risk factors and the factors that can lead to heart disease—and, of course, it is not only women who are at risk of heart disease.

This week the absolute risk of heart disease factors was released. It is a calculation of the risk of a heart attack. Guidelines for the management of risk are being released this week, and this will allow an approach to the prevention of heart attack and strokes in Australia.

Next Tuesday morning the member for Hasluck and I will be starting a walking group of members and senators. We are leaving from the House of Representatives on Tuesday at seven o'clock and we hope that we are joined by many members of this parliament, because we think we need to send out a positive message to the community that we need to address the issues of heart attack and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

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