Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for McPherson on her initiative in bringing this motion before the House. The issue of coeliac disease is a serious one, and probably almost 80 per cent of the coeliac population are unaware that they have coeliac disease. Coeliac Awareness Week is coming up soon—13 to 20 March—and is aimed at raising awareness and increasing the rates of testing and diagnosis of coeliac disease.

It is important not just to have increased awareness in the population but also to have an increased suspicion amongst health professionals, particularly GPs, that someone may have coeliac disease. The member for McPherson read out some very powerful examples of people who had coeliac disease but had often been misdiagnosed. Coeliac disease is when the immune system reacts abnormally to gluten, causing small bowel damage that leads to various gastrointestinal and malabsorptive symptoms. Fortuitously, last week both the member for McPherson and I visited the CSIRO in Canberra, where we saw some of the scientific work that is going on there in the development of gluten-free bread and gluten-free beer. This is very important, because if people with coeliac disease can eliminate gluten from their diet then they can largely eliminate the symptoms, but if they do not eliminate gluten from the diet then they can have a number of serious health consequences, especially if the condition is not diagnosed or treated properly. People with coeliac disease have a genetic predisposition to developing it, and it affects at least one in 100 Australians. There are probably 160,000 Australians who have coeliac disease and do not yet know it. Timely diagnosis of coeliac disease and treatment with a gluten-free diet can prevent and reverse many of the health conditions.

Coeliac Australia is a national federated not-for-profit organisation that supports people with coeliac disease and has done a lot in terms of making sure that gluten-free products are widely available. I commend the work of Coeliac Australia in raising funds to support research for coeliac disease and for raising awareness of coeliac disease and the gluten-free diet within the medical profession, the food and hospitality industry, along with the general public. It is now recognised that coeliac disease is more common than was previously thought. Growing awareness, better diagnosis and improved screening are the key to helping sufferers of coeliac disease, improving it and managing this disease.

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