Thursday, 31 August 2023

Community sport safety

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (17:25): (339) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Community Sport, and the action I seek is for the government to take a bipartisan approach in meeting with relevant stakeholders to form a strategy in combating concussion and repetitive brain injury at a community sport level. I rise to speak on the issue facing many local sporting communities right across the state, including in my local electorate of Nepean. I recently met with Sally Geurts and La Trobe University’s Professor Alan Pearce PhD to discuss concussion and repetitive brain injury, and I will acknowledge the Minister for Health, because I understand her office has also met with those two. Concussion and repetitive brain injury and related chronic traumatic encephalopathy – CTE – issues have been the subject of major discussion in elite sporting circles over recent years. The issues have been a central point in policymaking in sporting codes, including the AFL and NRL, with an increasing number of players reporting the ill effects of repeated brain trauma. However, while these discussions have taken place at an elite level and some action has been taken, community sport has largely slipped through the cracks.

Whether it be a lack of awareness, education or policy information, Victorian children participating in local sports are repeatedly exposed to potentially serious ongoing risks associated with concussions. For children, just a single concussion can negatively impact the course of that child’s life and development. Recent research reviewing studies involving 90,000 children showed that 36.7 per cent experience significantly higher levels of internalising problems such as withdrawing, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress and 20 per cent experience externalising problems such as aggression, attention problems and hyperactivity after concussion compared with healthy children or children who have sustained other non-concussion injuries.

Additionally, another study looked at over 448,000 children and showed that they are 40 per cent more likely to develop new mental health disorders, require psychiatric hospitalisation and engage in self-harm compared to children with non-concussive injuries. While these are serious lifelong issues facing children in the community and top sporting codes like the AFL have taken a top-down approach to addressing these issues in adult players, there has been little to no engagement at the grassroots level to seriously combat the risks facing younger sportspeople. It is not uncommon at junior or local levels for players to suffer three or four or more concussions per season. Concussions are not just a bump on the head, they are a mild brain injury and something that we must take seriously when we consider how commonplace they are on our local sporting fields. I urge the government to take a bipartisan approach, to speak with experts and stakeholders and to develop and implement policy so all members of the community can engage in local sport in the safest way possible.