Julie Bishop - Member for Curtin

Address to Vision 2020 Australian and the Australian Coucil for International Development, Canberra

E&OE…                                             

I acknowledge my colleague the Hon Kevin Rudd, my parliamentary colleagues who are here this evening, and the representatives from Vision 2020, from ACID and particularly the Parliamentary Friends Group which I think it is a wonderful initiative that demonstrates the level of bipartisanship which does exist in the parliament!
 
As human beings we can have an innate fear of having an injury or a disability which can impair and impact upon our lives and our ability to work and fully participate in society, and visual impairment can be one of those fears.
 
In a developing country it is extraordinarily difficult if the services and the support networks on the ground are non-existent.
 
In a developed country we are privileged to have access to support and so the consequences can be tempered somewhat. Although in Australia people who live in rural and remote communities, in our Aboriginal communities, still suffer from the consequences of not having the support to cure or prevent some visual impairment.
 
Now we are fortunate because we have ready access to glasses and contact lenses and medical advances such as laser surgery, can make sure a significant difference.
 
But that is not the case in so many developing countries around the world.
 
The World Heath Organisation estimates that 90 per cent of those with some sort of visual impairment are in developing countries – I think it says it is about 285 million people around the world with some level of visual impairment, and about 39 million people globally are deemed to be blind, and the majority are over the age of 50.
 
Now the causes of visual impairment include cataracts as the leading cause, then refractive errors and the good news is that the World Health Organisation says that about 80 per cent can be cured or prevented. So there is a challenge for us.
 
There have been studies done on this complex link between visual impairment and poverty, and there is that vicious cycle – those that are poor tend to be more vulnerable to vision impairment and then they become trapped in circumstances which prevent them from getting out of those circumstances, so you have what they call the 'poorest of the poor'.  And that is why the work of the representatives here today is so important.
 
Health care costs of course can be enormous, but also the loss of productivity in our workplaces, not only in developed countries but developing countries.
 
I think one of the enduring images that many Australians have of Fred Hollows is with his trademark glasses working with people in Eritrea, Nepal, Vietnam and vision of their faces, the joy on their faces as they have met Fred, worked with him and his team and then been treated.
 
And I recall back in 2002 in the Howard Government where we provided support to Fred Hollows and the Fred Hollows Foundation for work in Pakistan. I was so delighted to read the other day that the support that Fred Hollows has been able to provide in Pakistan has made a significant difference. Something like one million people have been treated for visual impairment in some form of another and equally importantly, so many people have been trained as ophthalmologists or as eye care workers.
 
So it is not just a question of providing the support to treat people, helping prevention is so important, education is so important, but also training people who can help others.
 
I want to congratulate the representatives of Vision 2020, established in the year 2000, the partnerships you have formed have been nothing short of amazing.
 
In 2005 I was the Minister for Aged Care and I recall the vital role that Vision 2020 played in helping setting up a national framework for action for promoting eye health and preventing avoidable blindness and vision loss.
 
And I know what an impact it had in getting help into places to support older people, but this work focussing on promoting eye health, preventing avoidable blindness and vision loss is so important and I know that both sides of politics have built on this framework and will continue to support it.
 
I want to say thank you to the organisers for this afternoon’s event, I think it is so very important to bring this issue to the national parliament when the national debate on national issues occurs in such robust circumstances.
 
You can be assured there is bipartisan support for the work that you do, the partnerships that you form and the fact that you are making a difference to the lives of people around the world.

Thank you for having me this evening.