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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4680 ..

Services, page 5 and tables. Suggestions in it that variations in the weather may have contributed to the decline will not stand critical scrutiny. As the note of 23 April stated, admissions to hospital remained the same. The actual numbers, of cyclists admitted at ACT public hospitals, in fiscal years, 1991-92 being pre-law, areas follows: 1991-92, 89; 1992-93, 87; 1993-94, 88. The source is a letter of 26 March 1996 from Mr Garry Wallsh, Director, Intergovernmental and Information Management, ACT Department of Health and Community Care.

Brain injury

There are good theoretical reasons why helmet wearing is likely to increase the more serious brain injuries. Quoting a little from the NHMRC report "Football injuries of the head and neck' chapter 6, copy left with one of your staff on 23 April:

"The mechanism of the production of an injury to the head is complex. It involves not only the effects of a direct impact to the skull and its coverings but, more importantly, the effects of the relative motion of the brain within the skull in response to that impact. This relative motion of the brain creates the shearing and rotational forces on the individual neurones which results in axonal stretching and diffuse brain injury.

"The addition of a helmet to the head will increase both the size and mass of the head. This means that blows that would have been glancing become more solid and thus transmit increased rotational forces to the brain. Because helmets distribute the force from focal impacts across a larger area, this may result in reduced fracture/laceration injuries but may increase diffuse brain injury."

We know from FOI requests that neither the ACT Department of Urban Services nor the Federal Department of Transport got advice from the NHMRC or Departments of Health before the law was introduced.

Finally, you are proposing what amounts to a reverse onus, that it is up to us to prove that helmet wearing will increase the risk of injury. Under proper democratic practice, the onus would be on government to show that to compel cyclists to wear helmets would not increase injuries, indeed, would reward them and the community with substantial benefits. Governments in Australia and the ACT Government in particular have never been able to show that. They have misled the public into believing that helmet wearing is efficacious in mitigating head injuries without, as our FOI inquiries have shown, doing the necessary evaluations.

As there is good evidence that the helmet laws are causing harm, and the NHMRC, an eminent authority on health, has warned of a danger, I request the Labor Party's support for an enquiry. As I wish to report progress to the Chief Minister, I should be glad of your response by 28 October.

Yours sincerely,

(Sgd Bill Curnow)

W.J. Curnow

President

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