Minister and Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care speak about dementia during the election campaign
Transcript
[BEGINNING OF RECORDED MATERIAL]
[Background Noise: A huge crowd of Memory, Walk and Jog attendees in Adelaide]
Tanya Buchanan: I'm here today at Memory, Walk and Jog when Adelaide joined with Minister Mark Butler and talking about the importance of dementia and getting active to beat dementia. So, Minister, thank you for coming down and joining us today.
Minister Mark Butler: Welcome to Adelaide.
Tanya Buchanan: Thank you
Minister Mark Butler: It’s not bad weather, is it?
Tanya Buchanan: [Laughs] No, it’s great weather and a great turnout. Our best turnout ever here in Adelaide. We are in election mode obviously and looking forward to the next Parliament. What’s your party’s commitment to Dementia over the period of the election and into the next parliament?
Minister Mark Butler: Well, as you know, Tanya, we released the National Dementia Action Plan, the ten plan, only at the end of last year. So a big priority for the next term of Parliament is going to be the implementation of that. Obviously, we're already working in sectors like aged care, but also in hospitals and healthcare to lift the awareness and the support that people living with dementia and their families get in those systems, making it much more a core central part of aged care in particular. But I'd really like to see a switch, and I know your organisation does, to prevention and early intervention as well.
Tanya Buchanan: Yes, that's exactly what we were doing here today. Of course, by getting active and sharing the message that we can do things that can reduce our risk of developing dementia.
Minister Mark Butler: We know don’t we and we’ve known for years healthy body, healthy mind is obviously a really important prevention factor but the Lancer Commission Report, I think deepened our insights into ways which can help prevent dementia, hearing loss, education that’s particularly important for the work we do in the region as well. So, I think our understanding of those risk factors is deepening all the time.
Tanya Buchanan: Exactly and you know as well that we've been calling for a discussion, a national discussion on dementia. And that's exactly the reason why, because far too many Australians are still unaware that they can be doing more to look after their brain health across their whole life and we need to be thinking about dementia across our entire life.
Tanya Buchanan: So, Minister, thank you for joining us.
Minister Mark Butler: My pleasure, Tanya.
Tanya Buchanan: Thanks.
[END OF RECORDED MATERIAL]
Transcript
[BEGINNING OF RECORDED MATERIAL]
[Background Noise: Adelaide Memory, Walk and Jog participants.]
Tanya Buchanan: We're here at Adelaide Memory Walking Jog this morning and I'm joined with Senator Anne Ruston.
Senator Anne Ruston: Hey
Tanya Buchanan: Senator thanks for coming along. Could you tell us a little bit about your party's commitment to dementia over the term of the election and into the next government?
Senator Anne Ruston: Well, Tanya, I think you and I both know that the most important thing that we can be doing is investing in prevention. We know there's so many things that Australians can do as they age that will help them ward off dementia or hopefully avoid it altogether. And so I'm a great believer that we must be investing in prevention. So making sure that people understand healthy lifestyles, you know, hence going for a run or a walk if you can't run this morning, making sure that you're eating properly. And just generally making sure that your lifestyle is focused on doing all those things that are going to be good for your health. And it doesn't matter what age you are, a healthy lifestyle is great for a healthy Australia. But most particularly, I really want to focus on making sure that we're helping people to be able to do all those things that will prevent dementia happening in the 1st place.
Tanya Buchanan: Yeah, that's great news to hear, Senator, because we know from our own studies and our own data that most Australians don't understand that dementia in many cases can be prevented. We know we can't do anything about our family history, and we know we can't do anything about our genetics, but for many cases we can prevent dementia or significantly delay its onset, which is why it's important that we have events like today. So thank you for coming along and thank you for your support of Dementia Australia.
Senator Anne Ruston: Thank you. And just before we finish, one of the things that I think was really, really important is making sure that we are investing in research into dementia because it's through that research that actually we will be able to prevent it, even if there are genetic dispositions. So MRFF, one of the things that we're really proud of making sure that we've got investment in research as well as healthy lifestyles.
Tanya Buchanan: That's great. Thanks, Senator.
[END OF RECORDED MATERIAL]
The Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Senator the Hon Anne Ruston, Shadow Minister for Health at the Adelaide Memory Walk and Jog speaking with Dementia Australia CEO Prof Tanya Buchanan in April.
The National Dementia Helpline
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