Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise this evening to speak to the motion of the member for Shortland regarding National Stroke Week and the campaign that was run to encourage people to understand their stroke risk. The motion follows on from the very excellent presentation last Wednesday that was organised by the parliamentary friends of heart and stroke, co-chaired by the member for Hasluck and the member for Shortland. It was a function that involved the National Stroke Foundation launching their public awareness campaign, aptly named Know Your Numbers, and I want to thank them for coming to Canberra and setting up the Know Your Numbers health check stations, which gave members and their staff an opportunity to stop for a minute and take a bit of a health check. I was one of those members.

The fact is that one in every six people in Australia will suffer a stroke. It now has become Australia's second-biggest killer and a leading cause of disability amongst adults but also amongst young people. Despite this, most people prefer to believe that stroke is something that happens to other people and, alarmingly, are unaware of potentially life-saving warning signs. If we stop to think about the number of people we know personally or know of who have had a stroke—anyone from members of our family to friends and the broader neighbourhood or, indeed, to our own constituencies—I think we would realise just how vulnerable we all are, especially given the odds that I have just mentioned.

That is why motions such as this are very important: they give us an opportunity to help raise awareness both within this chamber and in our respective electorates. Simple things like making healthier lifestyle choices, improving our diet and exercising regularly will go a long way towards improving the odds of not having a stroke, and the national stroke awareness campaign does encourage people to monitor. Some of the leading indicators are high blood pressure and diabetes. So it is very important to be aware of these indicators and very important for us to assist in raising that awareness, especially in our constituents and in this country generally, where our population is ageing and there will be a greater need for awareness about all sorts of disease.

In my electorate of Calwell, I have a large ageing population which I have learnt is pretty much in the high risk category. Many of my constituents, a large number of them, are of non-English-speaking backgrounds, so I am very mindful that we need to be aware that whatever programs we are promoting and helping promote are also programs that are available to people who do not speak English, who speak other languages. There is no point in having an awareness program if it is not reaching a large number of our constituencies. For many years I personally have advocated awareness in relation to health issues in the multicultural communities and I often translate a lot of material myself, or have it translated, to ensure that my constituents get the full benefit. I would encourage us all to be conscious of the fact that we are dealing with people in our constituencies for whom English is not their first language.

I have had a look at some of the statistics in my electorate and, as I said, many of my constituents are probably candidates for a stroke. According to the National Stroke Foundation and the Victorian Department of Health, in my local government areas of Hume and Brimbank the residents are at a high risk of having not only a stroke but also contracting type 2 diabetes. Statistically, 48.6 per cent of Victorians are deemed to be overweight or obese, but in Brimbank, statistics are 52.2 per cent and in Hume that figure is 53.5 per cent. Smoking rates are also higher in my two local government areas, as is a tendency not to be involved in exercise and physical inactivity. The City of Brimbank has the seventh-highest rate of type 2 diabetes in Victoria and Hume, the other city in my electorate, has the second-highest, so raising awareness is important. I commend the member for Shortland, and I commend all other members who would speak in this debate.

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