David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to again put forward my support for Hearing Awareness Week, between 25 and 31 August, and I congratulate the Deafness Forum of Australia for its initiative in promoting Hearing Awareness Week. The key objective of this week is to highlight hearing impairment and hearing loss, and provide greater recognition of this issue. It is not an uncommon problem, unfortunately. Hearing loss affects one in six of us Australians, and many of these problems can be prevented. There are issues around prevention and identification, but there are well-established services providing help and cure.

First of all, congenital deafness—through rubella and other uterine infections—which everyone is familiar with, can only being identified by widespread screening of children at very early ages. To get that intervention early, with cochlear implants, is vital. We have many institutions that are doing a fantastic job, and I would like to congratulate them, particularly bodies like The Shepherd Centre that run very effective intervention and training programs, and all the clinicians who are involved in cochlear implants—not to mention the Australian technology at the forefront of that invention which has liberated many people trapped inside sign language and other avenues of communication.

Another cause of hearing impairment is glue ear, a condition where the inner ear fills up with muck as a result of acute inflammation. This is also remediable, by putting little drains in the ear. In my electorate of Lyne, there are a lot of children, and, as the previous speaker, the member for Throsby, outlined, many people are not identified as having this problem. We have Australian Hearing services in Port Macquarie and in Taree that are doing a really great job trying to identify and offer relief to a lot of these people. But it is in the paediatric space that there are the best outcomes; therefore, regular, broad screening for hearing impairment in our young Australians is vital if we are going to make a big impact, as well as getting those with congenital and major hearing loss access to cochlear implants.

There are other forms of deafness we should be aware of, such as industrial deafness. Fortunately, most businesses and companies are now aware of prevention being better than cure. Earmuffs of all varieties are freely available, and it is a rare workplace now that does not have actions in place to mitigate that.

With regard to hearing services, the Commonwealth does provide a wide network of Australian Hearing offices, and I would like to highlight that they do a fantastic job. There are also private providers in this space, and I bring to the attention of the parliament the fact that some of this activity is, in my opinion, very opportunistic. They seem to be marketing the technology rather than addressing the problem. It is only with concerned, honest brokers that we are going to get universal attention and unbiased, not-commercially-driven analysis of who needs hearing intervention. It should be based on clinical judgement, clinical measurement and appropriate intervention, not on getting the most sales of hearing aids that people may or may not need. So we have to be careful whenever there is a push to intervene in certain areas, and make sure that the right decisions are being made.

We need to analyse this problem very clearly before we blow up a good service. It is with great pride that I have been able to have my say.

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