Statement on tragic Burswood drownings

The drowning deaths of young children in the Swan River is both tragic and deeply distressing. 

Royal Life Saving comes from a position where we believe that all drowning is preventable, so we fully support calls for a review into safety at the playground and its surrounds. 

However, we caution that the review must be widened to ensure that important and valuable lessons from this terrible incident are not missed. 

The Australian Water Safety Strategy targets child water safety via three interconnected water safety measures. 

The first stresses the need for constant supervision of children around water. The WA government are long term supporters of the Keep Watch program that cautions against distractions around water. Raising community awareness is an ongoing challenge that requires continued effort and a new campaign to help parents understand the importance of swim lessons is now needed. 

Second, all drowning is local. Nothing matters more than the actions in metropolitan and regional communities from the Kimberley to Great Southern. 

The third, developing swimming and water safety skills is well known to many Western Australians, but implementation is proving more problematic than most would accept. 

Few would argue with the notion of children having a universal right to being able to swim or more specifically the right be safe around the water. 

Sadly, our research shows that many children miss out entirely on lessons and will leave primary school not being able to swim 50m. Increasingly they dropout prior to the child’s seventh birthday, well before essential lifesaving or water safety skills can be learnt. The barriers to lessons are often financial, language or cultural, and sometimes all three. 

We need to build on what we are already doing well. Vacswim is currently underway, and WA has the country’s best school-based swimming program. Sadly, these programs often miss the mark when it comes to those most in need. Not all schools participate and if they do, not necessarily for every year of primary school. Providing every child with 5 hours of swimming lessons (usually in 10 x 30min sessions) for every year of primary school is a sensible reform and a worthwhile goal for both the community and government. 

The notion that the children who drowned on New Years Eve were members of the recently arrived Syrian community make the tragedy more heartbreaking.

Royal Life Saving’s cultural steering committee works to identify communities who miss out. We often provide swim and survive lessons free to refugee, regional or aboriginal community groups. We are always overwhelmed by demand, and grateful to our donors and supporters who make this possible.

Any review must consider more than the adequacy of fencing and make recommendations relating to supervision and children’s swimming and water safety skills.