Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like the member for Shortland, I too want to draw attention to World Diabetes Day on Monday and I thank the honourable member for Hindmarsh for bringing it to the House’s attention. It is a big health issue and sadly diabetes is on the increase. It is of particular significance in my electorate where there is a high incidence of diabetes, particularly in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. So it is something we all need to be mindful of and we need to ensure that people have access to not only treatment but also preventative measures, though it does not work for everybody, and also that they have access to nurse practitioners in the area of diabetes—that is really important.

I was just given a plaque from Life Education Australia, which I know some other honourable members received if they are also Life Education ambassadors. The plaque says, ‘For a safer, smarter life,’ and it has Healthy Harold on the plaque. The Hon. Alan Cadman, who heads up Life Education Australia, was just in the parliament and he presented me with the plaque. It is a wonderful organisation and something I know that all honourable members support. I thank him and Jay Basik, the CEO, and Caroline Watson, who were also here to present me with that.

There is another issue I want to raise. Yesterday I attended an event in the parliament, co-hosted by the honourable member for Fremantle and senators Xenophon and Heffernan, to do with gene patents—an issue that has been raised in this place before. The honourable member for Fremantle had a private member’s motion to which I spoke. It is one of those issues that will not go away. As I said on local radio in my electorate, it is an issue where the patents law needs to be unwrapped, in a sense, so that we can deal with the issue where discovery of something pre-existing in nature—gene sequencing—has actually been patented. That is the issue we have to deal with. It is good that honourable members are drawing attention to this issue. Also, the day before I met with Natasha Stott Despoja, whom I want to recognise because she first raised the issue in the Senate and she did some really good work on it.

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