Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak about an issue that I've learnt more and more about in the last 10 years or so, and I want to thank the co-convenors of Parliamentary Friends of Diabetes for bringing this motion to parliament. Diabetes is a complex disorder. We all know that if it isn't diagnosed early and treated effectively it can lead to very serious health complications, such as blindness, limb amputation, heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. As someone who spent a number of years working within the Department of Health and other agencies up in the Northern Territory, I've seen firsthand some of the consequences for Aboriginal communities in the Territory of a failure to treat these sorts of conditions. It certainly tells us there is a lot more we could be doing.

I think most of us here would agree that there's a need for a national diabetes program, working with the states, and always more research and more support. An estimated two million Australians with prediabetes are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next five to 10 years. I know that, as the daughter of someone with diabetes, I certainly carry higher risk factors. I note the government's announcement this year about subsidising flash glucose monitoring on the National Diabetes Services Scheme. I do think it was a shame that it came a year after it was actually promised. There had to be a massive community campaign by Australians with type 1 diabetes and by the opposition, and it included the tabling in parliament of a petition with 214,000 signatures. The minister had promised, as of 1 March 2019, that continuous glucose monitoring would be expanded and that flash glucose monitoring would be included in that expansion. We shouldn't be asking these groups of people, who struggle day to day to do the things they need to do to have a normal life, to be such fierce advocates in order to get very sensible changes to the health system to improve their quality of life. Because of the delay, because of that broken promise, thousands of Australians were forced to continue for a year a painful regime of finger-prick testing.

Why these flash monitors make such a difference was recently explained in comments by the chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at L'Hopital Bichat - Claude-Bernard, in Paris. He said:

Use of flash glucose monitoring—with a sensor rather than with strips—is associated with a drop of the incidence of a major, potentially lethal, acute complication of diabetes in insulin-treated people …

He also said:

The magnitude of the protection potentially afforded by the device is huge.

That's the sort of thing we need to hear from places that have been using this for a lot longer than we have.

I've had a lot to do with children in my electorate with juvenile diabetes, from Kids in the House day, when we here are inundated with children who have type 1 diabetes—to make sure that we understand the impact it has on their lives and how we can help them with additional funding for research—through to local events in my own electorate. Last year, I was very proud to lead off, in both the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury, the JDRF One Walk. JDRF says it's the biggest type 1 fundraising event in the world, with walks right round the globe bringing together around a million people. I joined JDRF advocate families at the start of the walks, and each of those walks in the different parts of my electorate raised thousands of dollars for research into juvenile diabetes.

What's inspiring about these events is the determination of the children and their families to overcome this chronic, life-threatening disease. They can explain to you really patiently about pinpricks for blood-glucose testing and the difference continual glucose monitoring makes—how it changes their lives. It's also inspiring to see the adults who were diagnosed as children, who go along to these events to be role models and mentors to their younger selves.

I'm very pleased to see the announcement that a large population study, funded by JDRF Australia, will take place in Australia. JDRF describe it as 'a huge step forward for research' and say it will be the first in Australia—and one of only three in the world—to screen people from the general population without a family history of type 1 diabetes.

Labor, of course, has a strong track record in supporting juvenile diabetes research. We funded the establishment of the JDRF Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network in 2010. We had planned to provide additional funding if we won the last election, and that funding would have allowed the clinical research network to enter a new phase, increasing the volume and impact of the type 1 diabetes clinical trials. (Time expired)

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