Wednesday, 1 May 2024

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Register and Talk about It: Inquiry into Increasing the Number of Registered Organ and Tissue Donors

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (10:53): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and speak on the Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee report – a very, very important report that I would encourage everyone to go ahead and sit down and have a read of – that is called Register and Talk about It. That was tabled in Parliament in I think the last sitting week. It details the committee’s inquiry into, importantly, increasing the number of registered organ and tissue donors here in Victoria. I feel like every now and then it is a topic that comes up in the media and is talked about and people are reminded to sit around the family dinner table and have a conversation about the importance of organ and tissue donation and putting their name on the register after that conversation. What we do know is that here in Victoria huge swathes of Victorians, the vast majority of us, are highly supportive of organ donation – about 81 per cent in fact – but only 23 per cent of Victorians are registered to be donors, which seems incredibly low, with that number dropping to only 10 per cent amongst our young people aged 16 to 25.

In comparison to us, South Australia, of all states, leads the nation with a donor registration rate of 72 ‍per cent. That is huge, isn’t it? We know there is a problem when so many Victorians and so many Australians are highly supportive of organ donation and would probably be glad to donate if you asked them, but here in Victoria we have so very few people registered proportionate to this overwhelming support, and indeed, Deputy Speaker, you are looking at one of them. Whilst I support organ and tissue donation and I would be more than happy to donate, I am not currently on the register. It is just one of those things. It is talked about in our family around our dinner table, but the actual act of then going and registering is just not something that I have done. This has helped lead us to the situation where the registration of Victorians sits at only 23 per cent. That is exactly why we have had this inquiry – because of people like me and others, because we need to understand why that is and we need to understand how to change it.

The key issue that this inquiry found was one of awareness and also, importantly, opportunity to register. To put it bluntly, we need to do better at letting especially our young people know how they can register to become a donor, because what we can see is that number drops to 10 per cent amongst young people aged between 16 and 25. One of the key recommendations of this report is for the government to consider reintroducing the option to register as an organ donor when applying for or renewing a drivers licence. This has proven to be really successful in South Australia. Let me remind you again they have a huge uptake of registration – 72 per cent, leading the nation – and that is exactly what they have done in that state to help lift registrations. This is certainly something that in this instance can be a standard that we can aim to emulate here in Victoria. Another recommendation to encourage young people to be donors that the report makes is to have a proper program that targets 15- to 16-year-olds through school, letting them know how they can make that decision to register as a donor.

The committee also looked at the issues surrounding tissue donation and how important it is to make sure that potential donors are aware of the differences between organ donation and tissue donation. Finally, the inquiry identified an alarming awareness gap when it comes to stem cell donation and the vast implications of stem cell research on treating cancers like leukaemia and lymphoma. As the report details, about three-quarters of Australia’s stem cell donations come from overseas, would you believe it, because not enough Australians know about this to go ahead and register as a stem cell donor on the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the committee in conducting this inquiry, particularly the chair the member for Lara, who is here in the chamber today. I also want to acknowledge the other members of the committee for their really hard work. It goes without saying this is a report I wholeheartedly commend to the house.