Aboriginal Health

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN (16:46): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation a question regarding smoking rates amongst Aboriginal women.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN: South Australia's Strategic Plan target 26 seeks to reduce the proportion of low birth-weight babies and halve the proportion of Aboriginal low birth-weight babies by 2020. A recent study conducted by the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute has reported that smoking rates amongst Aboriginal women are three times higher than those for non-Aboriginal women. The research also revealed that the high smoking rates in Aboriginal women are affecting the health of their babies by causing pre-term births and babies who are undersized for their gestational age.

My questions to the minister are: can the minister provide the chamber with some insights as to why the current policies, such as the Let's Break the Smoke Cycle campaign and the Aboriginal Health Council's Maternal Health Program appear to be failing to deter pregnant Aboriginal women from smoking and whether any other policy initiatives are currently being contemplated to ensure that the government meets its target of halving the proportion of Aboriginal low birth-weight babies by 2020?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (16:47): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. It is no secret that Aboriginal Australians face many health challenges. There is a clear link between poverty, history of disadvantage and health outcomes. We acknowledge that Aboriginal health indicators identify very serious concerns, which is why we have committed to closing the gap between the health indicators for Aboriginal people and the non-Aboriginal population.

We have been working with Aboriginal elders and communities to strengthen and build primary healthcare services and approaches that are responsive to the health and wellbeing of their communities. Health screening checks for adults and children were also introduced in 2004 to assist prevention and early diagnosis. Providing culturally inclusive pre-and postnatal birthing services has also been a new initiative of this government, with these services assisting over 200 Aboriginal births annually across the state, resulting in healthier birth weights and a lesser need for acute hospital nursery care, while improving breastfeeding rates.

Health screening checks for adults and children were also introduced in 2004 to assist prevention, as I said, and there has been significant progress towards halving the gap in mortality rates for Aboriginal children under five. According to progress points along the national trajectory, Australia is on track to halve the gap in child death rates by 2018, I am advised. Death rates for Indigenous children aged zero to four significantly decreased from 139 deaths in 1998 to 87.5 deaths per 100,000 children in 2012.

As I said, I understand that there have been quite a few areas of progress in our efforts to improve health outcomes, but one that we have not achieved, as the honourable member has indicated, is in smoking. South Australia's investment to closing the gap has seen significant increases in the delivery of health services to Aboriginal people during the lifetime of the National Partnership Agreement, but smoking has eluded us and so we need to redouble our efforts, in cooperation with the federal government, of course, as we do with our national partnership programs, and try to tackle those areas.

I know there are programs about smoking. We had some of their promotional material up in the foyer of my office recently, where an Aboriginal elder is talking about how smoking is 'not cool'. They probably use more modern language than that, but in my terms 'not cool at all'. As I say, we need to redouble our efforts in terms of smoking for Aboriginal populations. It is something that we have not achieved and we wish to.