Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this motion in relation to organ donor awareness. Ultimately, this is a motion about families who lose people and families who gain people. For me it is all too personal. In 1992, my then 25-year-old cousin, Christopher, lost his life in a skiing accident. For some days he was on life support, and during that time my uncle David Hunt, whom I love very dearly and who is perhaps one of my harshest critics and challengers, had to make a very powerful decision—that is, to release the organs of his young son. It has been a very difficult period for David since then, but the one sustaining element that he has had is that those organs which were taken from his son, my cousin, gave life to many people. Not all organs were taken. A decision was made that the corneas were too personal, but the principal organs were taken. I cannot tell the House to how many people they gave life but I know it was to a significant number. That story is the story that occurred 198 times around Australia last year. Christopher’s story is the story from the side of the donors. It has never been easy for my uncle or for our family, but the fact that there was some good, a profound good, which came from this passing and this process means, to me, that it is one of the most significant things which anybody in our society can do—that is, to make the commitment at an early stage to be an organ donor.

I also want to focus on the side of the recipients. One is Zoe Wood, a two-year-old girl from Mount Martha. I am the father of another two-year-old girl who lives in Mount Martha and so I was in close contact with Zoe’s family. Zoe needed an organ transplant in order to save her life and she was fortunate enough to receive it. She has two loving parents and three older siblings. They have back this beautiful little girl, they have back the hope of a unified family and they have their lives before them with all the glory that comes from having a two-year-old with a real future in front of her. That little girl, Zoe Wood, will be the face of the Royal Children’s Hospital appeal this year, because of the magnificent work of the hospital and the generosity of another family who, sadly, lost their own child.

This brings me to the question of the medical staff who give their time and wonderful expertise. My wife is a neurosurgical nurse. Paula has done much work in transplant surgery, and so we have, in a strange way, been surrounded by this issue—as family of a donor, as a family which has been close to recipients and as a family with a member who has been engaged in the transfer process. I think it is very important to pay tribute to the extraordinary medical staff, who have a sense of hope, belief and purpose in their work and who make life possible. They face tragic loss across the operating table and, at the same time, they have an extraordinary opportunity to bring life and a sense of hope to those who are facing loss.

In conclusion, we do need to examine the way in which the magnificent Organ Donor Register works. We have to examine whether there should, perhaps, be an opt-out system. If not that, I would urge the House and all those responsible to consider whether or not we should give more weight to the drivers licence signing process. I think that that should be sufficient. A family might have the right to override it, but if people can simply use their drivers licences—if that is enough to be registered as an organ donor—that will offer the potential to save hundreds of lives. I thank the House for its indulgence on this occasion and I remember my cousin Christopher.

See this speech in context