Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Bruce for his speech on this motion. I commend the member for Macarthur for stepping into the breach for me by seconding this motion. I am the seconder of this motion in the papers, but unfortunately I was not here in time to be able to do it in the chamber. I thank the member for Macarthur. I commend the member for Dunkley for this motion. The member for Dunkley is an extremely committed member of parliament and someone very dedicated to his electorate and to causes in his electorate. As his is a coastal electorate, he understands the importance of this issue. It is fantastic—and I did not realise this until I heard him speak—that there is a business in his electorate that has developed mole-mapping technology, which is going to be absolutely crucial in the fight against skin cancer. I commend the member for Dunkley for bringing this motion forward. It was an honour for me to be able to second it. It is an honour to be able to talk on this motion tonight.

Skin cancer is something that is growing in prevalence, sadly, in our society. It is something that we must tackle immediately. I have the honour of being one of the co-convenors of the group 'parliamentarians supporting cancer causes'. The very first breakfast that we had was about melanoma. During that breakfast, Marie Karakousis spoke. She has had melanoma. It was one of the most heartfelt speeches that I have heard in this House. It really brought home for me the need for us all to be very vigilant when it comes to skin cancer.

As a matter of fact, I must thank the House of Representatives and the parliament, because, as a result of bringing doctors to Parliament House to look at people's skin and check them, I went and had a check and I found that I needed to have two skin cancers removed. Fortunately, after they went for testing they were found to be benign. I have also been recommended to go and get mole mapping, which is something that I am going to do. For those who have spent a lot of time under the sun in regional and rural Australia, it is particularly important that you check your body constantly to ensure that there are not moles which could potentially develop into melanomas.

This motion here tonight is extremely timely. The member for Dunkley went through the six key points that you should always have in mind when it comes to dealing with skin cancer. We have moved on a little bit from the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign—that was a great start in making people aware of the need to make sure they covered their skin, especially when the UV was at its highest—but we need to do a lot more now. We have to make sure that we watch our skin and we need to look for any unusual signs that there might be something which is occurring which should not be, and make sure that we get straight onto it and get to our doctors. We also have to make sure that our doctors have the skills to be able to quickly identify potential melanomas and have them dealt with. We also need to keep improving the technology and we have to keep investing in the drugs to deal with skin cancer. Drugs which deal with skin cancer are still extremely expensive and the research into it is still in its infancy. Therefore, we have to make sure there is the money that can go into the medical research to deal with these issues. I commend this motion to the House, I commend the government members for supporting it, but in particular, I commend the member for Dunkley for putting this on the agenda in this House tonight.

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