Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Today Royal Life Saving Australia once again launched its National drowning report and unfortunately, again, it makes for sober reading. This year 291 people drowned on Australia's waterways. That's a three per cent increase on the number from the previous year and six per cent on the year before. In fact, for the past five years in Australia the number of people who drown in our waterways has been increasing. There were also 685 non-fatal drowning incidents requiring hospitalisation. Interestingly, most Australians don't drown at our beaches; they drown in our rivers, creeks and streams, with 23 per cent of the drownings occurring in those circumstances. And 74 per cent of those who drowned were male. We've had an increase, unfortunately, in the number of people aged zero to four years who drowned in Australia and a large increase in the number of people aged over 65 years. The lowest levels of drowning are in the five- to 14-year age bracket, which clearly demonstrates that swimming lessons for kids work, because this is the group that has the highest incidence of swimming lessons in their age group.

Australians live by the water. It's part of our culture. It's what we all do every summer. And we need to learn to be safe around water. Unfortunately in Australia safety around water is getting worse, not better. We need further swimming and water safety education in this country if we're going to arrest those numbers of drownings each year and see them decline. Unfortunately the swimming and water safety education that Australians get at the moment depends on their parents' income and where they live, but that should not be the case in a country like Australia. We can do better. Every child should get access to water safety and swimming training consistent with level 4 of the national water safety strategy by the time they complete primary school. That's the recommendation of the national Water Safety Council, which includes organisations like Royal Life Saving, Surf Life Saving Australia, AUSTSWIM and other accredited organisations, but that's not happening in this country at the moment. If you're from a non-English-speaking background, if you're not born in Australia or if you're an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander kid, the chances are that you don't get access to swimming lessons and you don't learn to be safe around water. Too many kids are missing out.

On 13 February this year I moved a motion in the parliament calling on the Turnbull government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into why more of us are drowning and what we need to do to bring about a decline in the number of Australian drownings . I again call on the Turnbull government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into this important issue.

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