Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that:

(a) Australia has one of the highest incidences of food allergy in the world;

(b) one in ten Australian babies aged 12 months have a food allergy;

(c) the number of reported life threatening reactions due to a food allergy has doubled in the last 10 years; and

(d) in the past 20 years, hospital admissions for food anaphylaxis in Australia have doubled and increased five-fold in children aged zero to four years; and

(2) calls upon the Government to make anaphylaxis and food allergy a national health priority, including:

(a) establishing a national food allergy register to capture an accurate picture of food allergy reactions in Australia and statistics on patient outcomes; and

(b) developing a model of care for food allergy management—to provide timely diagnosis, current information and ongoing access to quality medical care for people with food allergies.

Why do I move this motion? Because allergic disease is tragically on the rise. This is a disease that is not just about getting a bit of a rash or getting a bit of a welter, this is about life-threatening, severe allergic reactions often appropriately referred to as anaphylaxis. It is the fastest growing chronic disease in Australia but most people know very little about it or underestimate it severely. Allergic diseases include food, insect and drug allergies, asthma, allergic rhinitis or the often much maligned hay fever, and eczema. These are a mounting public health issue in Australia. Surprisingly, it is often just an Australian epidemic. We have one of the highest rates of food allergy in the world, with one in 10 Australian babies aged 12 months having had a food allergy already. The number of reported life-threatening reactions due to food allergy has doubled in the last 10 years and in the last 20 years hospital admissions for food allergy have doubled. It increases strikingly fivefold in children aged 0-4.

There is a whole series of reasons why this is happening and why we are going there but that is not the intent of the motion today. The intent of the motion today is to bring awareness to both government and citizens about this national health epidemic and to call for this area to become a national health priority. Many people have said that is not the way to go, but at least it gets this issue on the map. Until now the only time it raises its head in a public debate is when tragically a child dies, and that is happening way too often. The statistics about allergic disease in Australia are startling. One estimates that allergic disease is actually costing Australia $30 billion per year. Around 20 per cent of the Australian population has an allergic disease. Recent studies report that 10 per cent of infants in Australia now have an immediate food allergy. Anaphylaxis due to food allergy has doubled in the last 10 years and around five per cent of adults are allergic to one or more drugs. This is often overreported, and that is another great concern. People think they are allergic to drugs when they are not; they need to get tested.

Access to care is difficult, particularly in regional and remote areas where trained immunologists are just not present, particularly childhood immunologists. Allergy specialists are not out there in the numbers we need them. But also there is a huge lack of awareness about allergic reactions. My son is anaphylactic and that is probably why this is so close to my heart. He has been told on numerous occasions, 'Just eat more and you will grow a tolerance to it.' As he said when he was five to an adult, 'If I eat those nuts I will die.' The woman thought he was carrying on. There was a bit of a screaming match at a function I had when my five-year-old was defending his understanding of his disease. Now at 12 he just brushes people off and says, 'No, I don't want some, thank you.'

While there is currently no cure for anaphylaxis, it is manageable and the majority of deaths are completely avoidable. We need a national allergy strategy to better coordinate and streamline how allergies are managed across the country. Tragically, I have now met many families who have suffered the absolute fate of being related to a sufferer with an anaphylactic reaction. I travelled to Canada to meet with Sarah Shannon, the mother of Sabrina, who was the creator of Sabrina's Law following her tragic death. Only last sitting week in parliament I held an anaphylaxis awareness day and we had Fiona Cho come and speak about the tragic loss of her brother Raymond, who died at 16 and at school—a completely avoidable death. Raymond knew he was allergic and the school knew he was allergic to nuts. A teacher brought them into a cooking class and they were put into a biscuit. Raymond, at 16, took that biscuit. He probably did not know there nuts in it. Raymond died as teachers stood around not knowing how to administer an EpiPen and they stood around when he should have been given CPR. Raymond's family will never get over his death. Fiona was in floods of tears. Her parents have never come to terms with his death.

Coronial inquest after coronial inquest have said that we need more understanding, more training and more consistency across the states. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy are calling to make this a national priority in health. It is not an answer to everything but it is the beginning. We need for the premiers to come together at COAG. We need consistency. We should not have any more tragedies. The Bapters should not have sent their four-year-old off to kindergarten and not have him come home alive. I want to ensure we never see this happen again.

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