Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will do something very unusual today: I will start by congratulating the federal government and the Minister for Health and Ageing for contributing $4.2 million today to research into juvenile diabetes, in addition to the total program announced in 2004 of $30 million directed towards a centre for islet transplantation.

Just two rooms away from here, those announcements are now being made. They are being made in front of very small children who, the first time they came to this place for the Kids in the House program in October 2003, showed us very personally what their lives were like in living with type 1 diabetes—the fact that they could not produce their own insulin. They were pin cushions. They face, later in life, despite the fact that they still look young, fresh and healthy, the problem that, day by day, their life is dominated by hypoglycaemic events. Their lives are dominated by being unsure and uncertain of just what will happen to them. Their lives are highly regulated and they have to be highly organised. They also know that what they still face is the potential to lose the use of their limbs. They still face blindness and the deterioration of a series of bodily functions. They face a life that none of us have had to face, and that no child in this country or anywhere else should have to face.

When I spoke about this two years ago, I said that the one thing this government should do in relation to this problem is to put the money up. I congratulate them for doing that. They have combined with one of the unique groups in our country, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which has put $40 million worth of funding into diabetes research in Australia. Apart from the further funding that will be put into this program, there is also the concentration of not only peak medical bodies but also people of great standing, such as the Australian of the Year, who is running the executive board. The lady who is the president of the board has donated $5 million of her own money to kick-start this program.

Nothing is more important in life than children. It is absolutely true that children are the future. The quality of life of those children and, indeed, the extension of that life, is a matter of importance for everyone. As a member of the opposition, I simply join in congratulating the government and the foundation. In government, we would do the same. This is a brave step to take in the interests of those children. It is a wonderful thing to do. There is the possibility of a cure for juvenile diabetes. (Time expired)

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