Speaking at the APOLA national conference in Wollongong at the end of last week, Association life member Ken Holloway told media “we do an excellent job in drowning prevention and we ve got a lot of people who are involved. However, the demographic is changing on our beaches. This is mainly due to immigration and refugees coming from countries which are sometimes landlocked and they ve never been to a beach before. That s showing up in the drowning statistics.
The APOLA life member’s comments follow one of the deadliest seasons on record for beach drownings in Australia - during which 86 lives were lost, an increase of 30% from the previous summer.