Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to second the motion moved by the member for Grey and to speak in support of it. We are the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Diabetes, or should I say 'enemies of diabetes'. Since there's nobody listening and nobody taking a record, I would say that the member for Grey is a good bloke and very easy to work with, but hopefully no-one has taken that down!

The Diabetes Australia website refers to insulin as the holy grail of diabetes treatment, and it's not an overstatement. Insulin keeps more than one million Australians alive, and this year marks 100 years since insulin was discovered by Canadian researcher Frederick Banting and his colleagues Professor John McLeod, medical student Charles Best and researcher Dr James Collip. Together they received the Nobel Prize for their wonderful discovery, because it was a game changer for people living with diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is not linked to modifiable lifestyle factors, and today—although hopefully one day—there is no cure for type 1 diabetes and it cannot be prevented. A healthy lifestyle can only help to manage type 1 diabetes. A new report by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, released yesterday, found that type 1 diabetes costs the Australian economy about $2.9 billion a year. They found that increased access to diabetes technology and treatments could reduce that cost significantly. Forty per cent of people with type 1 diabetes develop complications such as blindness, require amputations or suffer from cardiovascular disease, and 21,000 people are hospitalised every year due to hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia. The lifetime cost of type 1 diabetes with complications is about $738,000.

As well as being the co-chair, with the member for Grey, of Parliamentary Friends of Diabetes, I have a personal interest in promoting awareness of this chronic condition. My mum had type 2 diabetes. Just a few weeks ago it was a decade, amazingly, since Peggy passed away. A mother of 10 children, she is still missed by all of us. I often associate Canberra with Mum, because I used to call her a lot when I was here, rather than when I was busy with kids at home. I still miss her, and she inspired me to be a part of this group.

Type 2 diabetes represents around 85 to 90 per cent of all diabetes cases. There are some markers that make it more likely that you will develop type 2 diabetes: if you're over 45, if there's a family history of diabetes, if you are from one of certain ethnic backgrounds, if you suffer from high blood pressure, or if you're overweight or obese. Despite this checklist, many people who develop type 2 diabetes have no symptoms at all. For some, the first sign may be a complication, such as a heart attack, a vision problem or a foot ulcer, connected with diabetes. As I said, there's no cure for type 2 diabetes, so prevention is crucial, as outlined by the member for Grey. Thankfully, there is very strong evidence that we can prevent it in up to 60 per cent of cases, but we are not yet approaching this benchmark in Australia. People at risk of type 2 diabetes can delay or prevent its onset by maintaining a healthy weight—always a struggle for politicians—undertaking regular physical activity, making healthy food choices, managing their blood pressure, managing their cholesterol levels and giving up smoking.

The National Diabetes Services Scheme, the NDSS, established in 1987 by the Hawke Labor government, has ever since had bipartisan commitment from successive governments. The NDSS is administered with the assistance of Diabetes Australia and assists people with diabetes to self-manage their diabetes. It does that through the provision of subsidised insulin pen needles, insulin pump consumables, glucose monitoring strips, continuous glucose monitors and flash monitors, and lots and lots of very useful information.

Diabetes has a wider impact than just on those who suffer with the disease. It affects other family members, friends, teachers and employees, who all need to be aware of the support that sufferers need. We need a national type 2 diabetes prevention program to help prevent people developing type 2 diabetes. We need a prevention workforce of health professionals trained and certified in diabetes risk assessment and prevention in every state and territory. A range of suitable health professionals from fields including nursing, dietetics, physiotherapy, exercise physiology, pharmacy and psychology, as well as Aboriginal health workers, should be included. The goal of any program would be to slow the growth of the obesity epidemic—or tsunami—which is the main driver of type 2 diabetes, and we need to prevent low-risk individuals from moving into that high-risk category. That's the low-hanging fruit—healthy fruit, I'm talking about, obviously. If you develop type 2 diabetes, eating well and exercising are very important management tools. It's important to keep blood glucose levels in the target range to prevent short-term and long-term complications. As the member for Grey so clearly stated, diabetes is an epidemic not only in this country but across the whole world. We need to tackle diabetes head-on, for all our sakes.

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