For most people awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), a word of congratulations usually follows suit.
But that expression feels misplaced when speaking to Taylors Hill local Allison Burns.
Allison was awarded an OAM on the King’s Birthday in recognition of her service to community health standards through her advocacy in improving safety standards around ‘button’ batteries.
For Allison, this recognition is one that is bittersweet.
In 2015, Allison’s daughter Bella died at just 14-months-old after a small round battery she swallowed became lodged in her oesophagus.
It has been nine years since the death of her daughter, and with it nine years of advocating for change.
In her work to advocate for improved child safety measures, Allison has led the wave for change and inspired many other child safety advocates across the country, and around the world.
“I’ve been able to successfully campaign and help implement the button battery standards here in Australia which have then been taken overseas and we’ve now seen them implemented in the US, and the UK is about to implement them as well. It is incredible to know that we were the first to do this and be part of that and inspire others to follow our footsteps,” she said.
Allison also formed Bella’s Footprints, a Facebook group dedicated to ensuring parents understand the potentially devastating effects of button batteries and how to implement button battery safety practices.
“I do this out of love for my daughter, and to protect every other child,” Allison said.
“I promised Bella when I lost her that I was going to change everything I could that was wrong with button batteries.
“I made it my mission, because had a lot of these measures been in place before she passed she’d probably still be here.”
The news that she had been awarded an OAM came as a surprise to Allison, and she is still unaware of who nominated her.
“It is very overwhelming. There are a lot of emotions behind it,” she said.
“It’s an incredible award and I’m so honoured … but it’s also bittersweet, I would never have received it had my daughter not passed away.”
In 2021, Bella’s story captured the hearts and minds of the nation as it was aired on the ABC’s Australian Story series titled ‘Sisters in Arms’, alongside Queensland mother, Andrea Shoesmith, who had also lost her four-year-old daughter Summer, to a button battery accident in 2013.
“We had the opportunity to campaign and speak to ministers in Canberra which was again another amazing opportunity, I’d never dreamt of being invited there,” Allison said.
“Being able to share our stories with the people running this country and making them realise how important and urgent this issue was – was crucial.”
For Allison it was a race against the clock to achieve law reforms that would prevent another death from a button battery.
But for all her efforts in ensuring mandatory button battery standards came into effect in 2022, Allison said the changes took too long. In 2021, three-year-old girl, Brittney Conway died in the Gold Coast after swallowing a button battery.
“From the first day I approached the ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] to the day the law came into effect was seven years. Considering that each week we have 20 children who end up in the emergency department from a button-related injury, that’s more than 1000 children a year. In seven years that’s 7000 children – we knew it was only going to be time before we lost another child, and we did. We lost Brittney.
“That was devastating because we had worked so hard to raise awareness and campaign and try to get button battery issues in peoples faces and we still failed to reach somebody. A family who weren’t aware of the dangers. This is the problem we still face. We have 62 million people in Australia. For us, trying to reach 62 million means education is not something you do once, it’s something you do everyday.
“We constantly have new parents coming along, new children being born, new doctors being trained, nurses and paediatricians, there’s a constant need for education and awareness.”
Allison said the ultimate end goal is to have button batteries banned for good.
“I personally want these batteries banned. I want battery manufacturers to stop making them or to redesign them so they stop killing children. I won’t stop till that happens,” she said.
“At the moment our next option is to make it as hard as we can for these battery manufacturers to get these products so that either they choose to use a different battery or people stop buying their products.”
