Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on indulgence: I join with the Prime Minister in strongly supporting these remarks of condolence for Jane McGrath. Occasionally, this nation loses somebody in whom we see something of the kind of people that we would like to be. Jane McGrath, at the age of 42, has now gone. Her husband has lost a wife, two children, James and Holly, have lost their mother, and Australia has lost a woman who burrowed very deeply into our hearts.

She was, as the Prime Minister just reminded us, diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997. It turned her life upside down, as it does every woman ever diagnosed with breast cancer. Not only did she, with determination, set out to fight the disease and receive all of the support and treatment that this country could offer but also she went on to have her family and, along with Glenn, establish the McGrath Foundation which, amongst other things, has given this country breast care nurses. Both sides of this parliament have committed strongly to significantly increasing the funding for those breast care nurses.

None of us, particularly we men, should ever forget that there are 12,000 women over the next year who will be diagnosed with breast cancer; 2,700 women, over the course of this next year, will die from breast cancer. It is interesting that in 1983 we had 5,000 new cases a year, and now we have 12,000 new cases a year. And, whilst survival rates have increased from 70 per cent five years ago to more than 86 per cent, we still have a long way to go.

As a parent with two daughters, I also say that, in a world where we have paraded before our children—and our young daughters in particular—role models of varying ability and admiration very rarely meeting the standards that we as parents have, Jane McGrath reminds us, in her life and in her death, that the value of one’s life is determined not by the adversities that come to you but by how you choose to deal with them. The McGrath Foundation will continue this important work. She is a woman much admired and much loved, and she will be greatly missed.

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