Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I'd also like to thank Senator Griff for giving us the opportunity to debate this critically important issue today. As we've already heard in the chamber, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder does have a lifelong and devastating impact on people and the wider community. It's a lifelong neurological and developmental disorder that can be seen in children. It's indeed a lifelong phenomenon, triggered of course by alcohol consumption during pregnancy. We know that it is likely to be more severe and more likely when consumption is excessive and frequent throughout the duration of a pregnancy. I do note, though, as has been highlighted, that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption according to health recommendations. It is also important to point out that it is more detrimental in families with intergenerational health problems. There is the influence of FASD in a single pregnancy. If drinking then occurs during the next intergenerational pregnancy, we can also realise intergenerational health issues. In cases of severe FASD, life expectancy can be seen to be only 34 years of age.

But I really would like to highlight that it is a condition that we shouldn't stigmatise as belonging to particular communities or within particular social groups. If people drink during pregnancy, it is likely to have developmental and neurological impacts on a person, despite the fact that they might otherwise be succeeding in life more broadly and that FASD, as a phenomenon, may not be particularly noticeable or attributable to the way that someone is in the world. So I think we should steer away from tagging or stigmatising particular communities with these issues.

I'd highlight that a Canadian study found people with FASD are 19 times more likely to be arrested at some point in their lives compared to neurotypical counterparts and that a significant number of young people in juvenile detention have FASD. The symptoms go unnoticed until a child reaches school age and they become more visible through activity. I notice that it's actually quite difficult when young people have developmental or learning delay to get a proper diagnosis for FASD. The diagnosis is incredibly expensive and quite often difficult for people to access, particularly when you're trying to work through and rule out a whole range of developmental or cognitive disorders. There might be cognitive, behavioural, health and learning difficulties that need to be assessed. It's a problem that FASD is not recognised as a disability in Australia, as per the Department of Human Services' disability list. I think that is a problem, particularly when other learning disabilities are so well recognised.

I want to give a particular shout out to Aboriginal leaders in the Fitzroy Valley, who've been very active in addressing FASD in the community since the early 2000s. This is the Lililwan study, initiated by leaders in the Fitzroy Valley. They interviewed mothers and researchers and found that 55 per cent of women in that community had been using alcohol during the pregnancy but that women at that point in time simply did not know that alcohol could harm their unborn children. One of the report's authors said:

Alcohol was used in over half of those pregnancies, but when women did use alcohol they did so at high levels, now this wasn't due to any intent to harm …

It was simply out of ignorance. They had no idea that drinking alcohol could harm their unborn child.

That community pushed for their own alcohol restrictions and they've been able to slow down the rates of alcohol use amongst pregnant women in that community very dramatically. James Fitzpatrick, one of the researchers, said:

… we have worked incredibly hard on a strategic prevention strategy and we are starting to see the rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and alcohol use in pregnancy decrease.

I want to pay tribute to June Oscar, a proud Bunaba woman and a strong advocate for Indigenous Australians. She is the current First Nations commissioner in the Human Rights Commission. She received the Menzies School of Health Research medallion in her work with FASD.

I'd particularly also like to commend the work of the Western Australian government. In January 2019, the Western Australian alcohol and drug interagency strategy was released by the WA Minister for Health, Roger Cook. It provides a guide for government and non-government organisations as well as the wider community to prevent and reduce the adverse impacts of alcohol and other drug use in WA. It has five key strategic areas, several of which make specific reference to FASD.

I also want to highlight before the Senate today the state coroner's inquest into the deaths of 13 children and young persons in the Kimberley. The report of the state coroner's inquest was published on 7 February this year and had 42 recommendations, seven of which addressed the issue of FASD. It was very clear that there were concerns in a number of these deaths where the children had been parented by someone with FASD or they were impacted by FASD themselves. I would really encourage the government at a national level to look at those recommendations.

Health minister Roger Cook has also led the charge for compulsory labelling of alcoholic beverages. This was successful last year in achieving this change with the Commonwealth in terms of there being mandatory pregnancy warnings on all alcoholic beverages. The AMA released a statement acknowledging the presence of the disorder in Australia and has recommended an approach to reducing FASD that is consistent with the broader campaign for combating problem drinking in Australia, including efforts to reduce the availability, affordability and accessibility of alcohol.

So, today I join in calls on the government that we need a national approach on this issue—that the national FASD strategic plan requires funding and requires support from the states to reduce the impact of FASD on the Australian community. I want to highlight that the drinking habits of Australians are changing and that public health education campaigns are working, including messages to pregnant women from all walks of life. But, sadly, it is still all too common to see pregnant women drinking, including women who are highly intoxicated during their pregnancy, in all walks of life in Australia. So we really do need to pay special attention to this issue to make sure that women have the message and that they get the support they need. Managing addiction, including alcohol addiction, is very difficult. It is not uncommon for pregnant women to have a conversation with each other to say, 'Goodness, how are you coping without having a drink?' Quite often we don't recognise how alcohol-dependent our society is or how much people reach out for and crave a drink. (Time expired)