ROB BRADLEY
In the last 12 months, 28 Australian children under the age of five have drowned.
Most drowned in or around their own home. The Queensland Government has recently taken the bold move of implementing mandatory pool safety laws that include registering pools and spas and ensuring they meet with safety standards.
The criticism of being a nanny state was expected from some quarters, but I applaud the move.
Following Queensland's lead last February, which was strongly supported by Minister for Sport Mark Arbib, all states and territories agreed to work towards a nationally consistent best practice set of laws which was very pleasing. Royal Life Saving currently deals with eight different sets of legislation ranging from quite stringent to almost non-existent and it is incredibly difficult and confusing for everyone involved - not least the home pool owner. Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria are now very close to best practice but the others have some way to go to reach an acceptable level. Hats off to the South Australian, Tasmanian and ACT governments who have indicated strong support.
The current Australian Water Safety Strategy aims to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in child drowning by 2020 but we at Royal Life Saving have been striving to achieve a 100 per cent reduction for 15 years. To reach a zero drowning goal we need to put both simple and complex measures in place. Registering a pool and ensuring it is safe, is a simple measure.
If we look at the things we do know, then the solutions, or at least a way forward, often become obvious. And what we do know is that drowning is the leading cause of preventable death for children aged one to four across Australia. We also know that 85 per cent of home pools across Australia do not meet current safety standards.
Personal responsibility is well and good if people accept that responsibility. Unfortunately, the danger surrounding pools and fencing can be insidious: what may look safe may be far from it; corrosion, loose bolts, a faulty gate latch and so on, may creep in over a period of time and be unnoticeable to a casual observer. An increasing number of drowning deaths have occurred in recent years in exactly this way - when the parents thought their pool was safe - but it wasn't.
Mandatory compliance checks and the registering of pools and spas followed up by regular maintenance by home pool owners is just a simple way of ensuring the safety of Australian children.
Every year, those of us who own and drive cars undergo vehicle safety inspections and obey road rules, speed limits, seat-belt laws, child seat compliance, stay under .05 BAC, and avoid using our mobile phones while driving. Some would say that's the result of living in a nanny state; others would be glad such laws exist; those perhaps whose personal tragedy might have been avoided if those laws were in place earlier.
Michael and JoAnn Morris from the Samuel Morris Foundation understand. In 2006, their two-year-old son Samuel found his way into the backyard pool of the home they had recently moved into. Samuel pushed against a faulty section of the pool fence which gave way and gave him clear access to the pool. Samuel survived but the once bright, happy and cuddly child now has severe brain injury and disabilities that have destroyed his life.
Is complying with a pool safety check and registering a pool or spa, too much to ask? I don't think it is. But should pool safety be the responsibility of the Government or the responsibility of the pool owner? It is both - this is a community issue. The Government needs to ensure that the right things are being checked and by the right people; the pool owners need also to be vigilant and responsible.
However, with 85 per cent of home pools not meeting current safety standards - some don't even have fences - we need to accept that self-regulation alone doesn't work. Better education surrounding this issue may help, but considering that drowning continues to be a leading cause of death among our youngest children, we need to accept that stringent measures must be put in place.
Earlier this year, Royal Life Saving hosted the World Conference on Drowning Prevention in Vietnam. We chose to hold the conference in Vietnam to highlight the massive child drowning numbers in Asia. The number of children that drown in Australia in one year, a country like Bangladesh loses every single day. Most of those countries are in no position to implement anywhere near the safety and education standards surrounding swimming and water safety that we take for granted.
The work and research that Royal Life Saving and its partners have carried out in countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia and China, has irrefutably shown us that simple measures like supervision, the teaching of basic swimming and water safety skills, and placing a barrier between a child and the water, will dramatically decrease the number of child drowning deaths.
Unlike the countries mentioned above, Australia has a real opportunity to eradicate child drowning. If it takes mandatory pool safety legislation to do it, then so be it.
Rob Bradley is the CEO of the Royal Life Saving Society. More information can be found at: www.homepoolsafety.com.au. See Rob's full profile here.
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