Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Community Affairs References Committee on concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports, together with accompanying documents, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This consensus report is a landmark report in understanding the impact and extent of concussion on Australian sports players. The committee heard tragic stories from athletes whose lives had been shattered because of concussion and from family members who have lost loved ones from the impact of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, a progressive degenerative neurological disease that results in the decline of memory and cognition, depression, suicidal behaviour, aggressiveness and, eventually, dementia. The people who shared their stories with the committee urged us to push for more action so that others would not suffer in the way that they had, and I thank these athletes and their families for sharing their stories with us.

The committee's view was that there is clear evidence of a causal link between repeated head trauma and concussions and CTE. Our report states:

While important research questions remain regarding the degree of causation and the nature of long-term impacts, these questions should not be used to undermine the fundamental nature of that link.

The stories we heard were heartbreaking. Former professional rugby league player Mr James Graham stated that, although rugby league gave him a great life and many opportunities, he believed that it's likely that it will come at a cost to his health and life span. He said:

Some of this is due to the nature of my sport, due to the environment that I was put into, the attitudes that existed around concussion and my own choices, at times, to carry on and take advantage of a system that allowed me to play six days after being knocked unconscious.

Ms Kirby Sefo, an Australian rugby player, told us that she had sustained in excess of 40 head knocks over her career and spoke about the debilitating symptoms she experiences:

I begin with dizziness and hypersensitivity to light. I lose parts of my vision. I experience a loss of balance and disorientation, followed by heavy fevers and sweats and then severe vomiting. Once the vomiting settles, I'll pass out into a deep, deep sleep that can vary anywhere from 45 minutes, with the longest I've experienced being around eight hours.

Lydia Pingel is a 30-year-old former AFLW player. She told us that she was medically retired from contact sports due to seven concussions she received over three years. Two years on she has a cognitive impairment and suffers from persistent post-concussion syndrome. She said:

Subsequently, my life has completely changed due to that. There is no rehab. There are no specific treatments. There is nothing specific, essentially, to what I'm going through or specific to concussion in general.

Ms Pingel also gave evidence about the pressure on her during her career to play on:

A concussion was never taken as serious as any other type of injury like a knee, hamstring, ankle etc. There was no mandatory rehab, no monitoring or follow up care once you had a few days off, did lighter training and said you felt 'ok' and 'fine' to train and play … it was easy to manipulate the club, coaches, physiotherapist, and vis versa especially if you were an 'important player' to be cleared to play and train because what also constituted the recovery period wasn't clear.

Renee Tuck told the committee the tragic story of her brother, former AFL player Shane Tuck:

Shane's CTE and brain disease had been a very slow burn for him up until the last four years of his life … We watched him decline over many years, but the last two years were probably the most tormenting and traumatising for him. Shane had a lot of auditory hallucinations … He slowly ended up on the verge of dementia. By the end, he'd lost motor skills and memory.

Enid Taylor, the wife of the late Barry Taylor, shared with the committee the impact that dementia had on their family. Mr Taylor had played rugby union from under-7s until he was almost in his mid-30s.

He showed signs of a change of personality at around about 60. But prior to that … he had become quite aggressive. Once he was diagnosed with dementia, from then on it was horrendous. … He was aggressive and irrational. It was a madness; it wasn't normal. He eventually became totally dependent, incontinent and the rest, so he went into care where he was for 3½ years until he passed away …

The committee has made some strong recommendations about how to reduce the impacts of concussion, better manage concussion, collect better data on concussion and to support more independent research. The committee recommends the establishment of the national sports injury database as a matter of urgency, noting that this will significantly help address the lack of sports injury data available in Australia.

Another key recommendation is that the Commonwealth government should play a bigger role in supporting and coordinating research into the effects of concussion and repeated head trauma and consider a coordinated and consolidated funding framework for ongoing research.

We heard evidence of legitimate concerns about the evidence of concussion research, financed by sporting organisations. Sports historian Dr Stephen Townsend told us:

The governing bodies of contact sports see the concussion crisis as an existential threat, and they [are] desperate for research which suggests that SRC [sport-related concussion] is less common or less dangerous than is currently believed, or that their efforts to reduce SRC are working.

Dr Reidar Lystad told the committee there have been 'several incidents' of interference from sports governing bodies in research projects that they finance.

The committee heard a lot of evidence about how concussion is managed differently across different sports, which is confusing and is seemingly based on what suits the sport and, arguably, their profits rather than medical evidence, so we recommended the Australian government, in collaboration with medical experts, should develop return-to-play protocols adaptable across all sports for both children and adults that have incurred a concussion or suffered a head trauma.

We heard considerable evidence that players should have longer periods away from playing after concussion. For example, neurologist Rowena Mobbs told us:

In terms of adults, I would generally advocate a conservative path of four weeks off from play, inclusive of that weekend's games.

  …   …   

For kids it should be longer, and there's talk of six weeks.

Other recommendations concern how best to improve community awareness and education, and that national sporting organisations in Australia should explore further rule modifications in order to prevent and reduce the impact of concussion and repeated head trauma. We also recommended that the Australian government, in partnership with state and territory governments, should consider how best to address calls for better health care, including concussion and head trauma guidelines for GPs, suitable general practice consultations for people with concussion and increased training for first aid responders.

Critically, the committee also recognised the need for a best-practice model to provide ongoing support, financial and otherwise, to current and former players affected by concussions and repeated head trauma. Acknowledging the current situation, where professional sportspeople in Australia are generally excluded from workers compensation schemes, the committee considered that professional sportspeople should be covered by adequate insurance arrangements. The situation regarding former players who have been impacted by concussion injuries was summed up by John Hennessy from the Community Concussion Research Foundation, who said:

There's little care for retired players, many of whom are falling through the cracks with no workers compensation, no income protection, and, in many cases, some heart-wrenching stories of personal anguish and of families being destroyed, domestic violence et cetera. There is no support for many of those players from the AFL or AFLW. The care is not there.

Anita Frawley, widow of the late AFL player Danny Frawley, said:

What could be of higher priority for the competition than looking after the individuals on whose shoulders the success of the game now stands?

The Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance submitted that, for people sustaining catastrophic sporting injuries, Australia's existing insurance system offers little hope. They said:

… this hodgepodge of funding and insurance arrangements for catastrophic injury means that Australians who sustain catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries from sporting activity have worse outcomes than those who sustain equivalent injuries at work or on the road.

I, personally, am disappointed that, despite recognising the need for adequate insurance arrangements, the committee fell short of making a recommendation in this area. I want to put on the record that the Greens support the development of a no-fault insurance scheme for sports injuries. I urge the government to take this report very seriously and quickly move to implement its recommendations. I do note, however, that many of the recommendations are couched in terms of recommending that the government 'consider' taking action. I urge the government to move beyond considering and actually act. It is time for the Commonwealth to step up.

In conclusion, as I said, I really want to thank all of the people who submitted to the committee and I want to thank my fellow committee members. I particularly want to thank Senator Lidia Thorpe, who initiated this inquiry when she was a member of the Greens. I know that she is disappointed that she's not able to be here to speak to this inquiry today. I really do commend this report to the Senate and to the government.