Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the remarks of the Prime Minister and to lament the passing of a truly great Australian, in fact he was probably the finest Australian scientist not to have won a Nobel Prize. Many other prizes, though, were deservedly heaped upon him for his work overseeing the smallpox vaccination program—which, as the Prime Minister has just observed, did finally eliminate that dreadful scourge from our world—the development of myxomatosis to help control rabbits in this country and for his antimalarial work in Papua New Guinea. It can be said of Professor Frank Fenner that he brought knowledge from the laboratory and magnificently applied it for the benefit of all mankind. We mourn his death but we celebrate a truly great life.

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