Out of 248 people drowned in Australian waterways, 80 per cent were males, according to the Royal Life Saving National Drawing Report 2020.
Between 1st July 2019 and 30th June 2020, the report estimates a further 504 people experienced a non-fatal drowning incident.
Most commonly, drowning incidents occur in rivers and creeks, 21 per cent, followed by accidents in ocean and harbours at 20 per cent and on the beach, 18 per cent.
Natashar Wills from Victorian Fisheries Authority says the top three activities that have an impact on the rate of drowning incidents are swimming, boating or falling when fishing.
She says members of the multicultural community are not always familiar with rules set in place for water safety activities.
"So, culturally linguistically diverse community, many of them really enjoy fishing, it’s part from their cultures from their countries where they were born, so they enjoy picking it up here. It’s also important to know there are fishing rules, and you need to follow them because the fines are really large, so we don’t want people to get in trouble because they don’t understand what the rules are.”
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