Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I would like to bring to the attention of the Senate some innovative measures helping to improve the health and wellbeing of young Indigenous Australians. Before I do that I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the enormous contribution to the parliament of the member for Fremantle, the Hon. Dr Carmen Lawrence, who today gave a very moving valedictory speech in the other place. She has been a member of this parliament since 1994 and will be retiring at the next election. In her term of office in this parliament and in her previous public service with the parliament of Western Australia she has been a tireless and fearless advocate for Indigenous Australians. It has been a great privilege to serve in the parliament with Dr Lawrence.

Next Tuesday, 18 September, is National Close the Gap Day. That is the day when Australians can recognise the 17- to 20-year difference in life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-Indigenous Australians. It is a day for Australians to show their support and commitment to closing that gap.

Many people in our Indigenous community do not have the luxury of looking forward to a long and healthy life as they do not have access to the adequate health care that everyone in this chamber does. Instead, Indigenous people are faced with many of the same health issues faced by people in Third World countries. According to the ABS, children born to Indigenous parents die at twice the rate of non-Indigenous babies. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders end up in hospitals at twice the rate of other Australians. And Indigenous people are more than three times as likely as non-Indigenous people to report some form of diabetes.

The Close the Gap campaign is supported by more than 40 organisations across Australia, each of which deserves our recognition and appreciation. The fact that our Indigenous Australians face such a lower life expectancy is a terrible situation, but one that we can change if we make the commitment. That has been proven true by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who on their own initiative and with government support have undertaken projects to improve health care and opportunities. For example, in South Australia the Pika Wiya Aboriginal Health Service in Port Augusta and the Spencer Gulf Rural Health School created a chronic disease self-management course called LIFE: Living Improvements for Everyone. That program helps patients to understand their condition as well as how to manage and organise their care. During the course, participants learn about numerous areas, including nutrition, communication and the appropriate use of medications. Participants are able to share their experiences with their peers, and that allows them to learn from each other. Unfortunately, that program has run out of funding, so its future is unclear. But it is the type of program that warrants government funding. We need to invest in those kinds of community based programs if we are ever to end the inequality of health care provided to our Indigenous Australians.

I have mentioned diabetes, but another disease that disproportionately affects our Indigenous community is hepatitis C. That is a virus which causes inflammation of the liver and can be seriously damaging to sufferers. Symptoms of hep C include fatigue, nausea, fever and an enlarged liver. It is possible that hep C, without treatment, can develop into chronic infection which has the potential to cause liver damage, and in a number of cases it causes serious liver damage that can result in cancer, failure of the liver and, of course, death.

In Australia approximately 264,000 people have been exposed to hep C. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders constitute about 8.3 per cent of those 264,000 persons although ATSI people only make up 2.4 per cent of the Australian population. Because two-thirds of hep C notifications are reported without accompanying notification as to whether or not the person is Indigenous, it is quite possible that hep C in Indigenous Australians is at an even higher rate. There is no vaccine currently available for hep C but the virus can be treated effectively. Unfortunately, as I said before, many Indigenous Australians do not have access to the appropriate treatment.

The infection rate of Indigenous Australians is much higher, and escalating, whereas in the non-Indigenous community the infection rate has stabilised and is going down. Action needs to be taken to stop that infection rate. I note that the National Hepatitis C Strategy identified three target populations: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who engage in risk behaviour, people in custodial settings and people who inject drugs. Not only are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people one of the target groups but they are also disproportionately represented within the remaining target populations as well.

Hep C is transmitted only by blood-to-blood contact; therefore, it can be transferred through unsterile tattooing or body piercing, sharing razor blades or toothbrushes, certain sexual activities or the sharing of equipment used to inject drugs. The latter of those methods of transfer is arguably the biggest problem in the Indigenous community, where it is estimated that 90 per cent of all new hep C cases are attributed to the sharing of injecting equipment. I am pleased to say that the government of South Australia is currently developing a South Australian hepatitis C action plan. I would like to congratulate the state Labor government for that initiative.

On 27 August I was invited to attend the launch of a play called Chopped Liver at Tauondi College, an Indigenous college in Port Adelaide. It was presented by the Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative and by the Hepatitis C Council of South Australia. It is a play written by Kamarra Bell-Wykes and directed by Kylie Belling. It was extremely entertaining but also very confronting. It was a performance that helped to demonstrate the harsh reality of hep C in the Indigenous community. The play told the story of a couple, Lynne and Jim. Both of them were infected with hep C, Jim from tattooing in prison and Lynne through injecting drug use. They only realised 10 years after their exposure to the virus that they had indeed been infected, and it was telling on their health.

Chopped Liver toured South Australia for three weeks, thanks to the support of the Commonwealth Hepatitis C Education and Prevention Initiative, the Aboriginal Health Division of the South Australian Department of Health and the excellent South Australian Indigenous health organisation Nunkuwarrin Yunti. It moved through regional South Australia, where there were a number of shows performed in prisons. I know it is still touring, so I urge any senator who has the chance to see it to go and see a performance of that play.

Another excellent initiative that I was fortunate enough to enjoy recently was the Croc Festival held in Port Augusta last week. This event, which also tours regional Australia, provides both Indigenous and non-Indigenous primary and secondary school students with the opportunity to participate in sports, health, education, careers and reconciliation activities. There were people there from the remotest corners of my state. The Croc Festivals are supported by the federal, state and local governments. In 2007 it is expected that some 20,000 students from 500 schools will attend these festivals in different areas of Australia. The organisers of the festivals provide an action-packed program which culminates in some spectacular performances from young students. Those performances are put on for the entertainment of the local communities where the festivals are held. There was a huge audience at Port Augusta for that.

I would like to acknowledge the support of the very many government departments who get that together, but, in particular, the festival organisers, especially Helen Sjoquist, who took the time to show me around the festival and involve me in the program. I would also like to acknowledge the work done at Croc Festivals by another wonderful Indigenous Australian woman, Evonne Goolagong Cawley. In Port Augusta she was teaching Indigenous young people how to play tennis. She is a woman who, I suppose, could have ended her career teaching rich white kids in somewhere like Florida but instead has chosen to tour the country with Croc Festivals, assisting young Australians to hone their tennis skills.