Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Last weekend our team, the Kooyong Colts, participated in the Hawthorn Relay for Life, raising more than $16,000 for the Cancer Council of Victoria. This brought the total funds raised by the Kooyong Colts over the last four years to more than $65,000.

The Relay for Life started as a fundraising initiative in Australia, in 1999. Relays are now held in every Australian State and Territory, with more than 134,000 participants raising over $24 million each year. Every dollar raised goes towards funding the Cancer Council's vital research, prevention and support programs. The money raised has made a real difference. Five years ago the survival rate was 45 per cent. Today, the survival rate is the highest it has ever been, at 66 per cent, but there is still a long way to go.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Australia, with an estimated 43,700 people succumbing each year. This year alone, more than 108,300 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Australia, including 868 diagnoses in Boroondara, the local council area mirroring my electorate of Kooyong.

Every Australian has been touched by cancer, whether personally, or through family and friends. Every Australian knows someone who is a survivor, a sufferer, or a carer. One of the most moving moments each year at the Relay for Life in Kooyong is when people light candles, put them in a paper bag, and place them around the relay track as a sign of remembrance for those lost. This candlelight ceremony occurs after dark, and friends walk hand in hand in silence.

It was wonderful to see so many schools participate in this year's Relay for Life, with young people camping out overnight and enjoying the 18-hour walk. Some dressed up as superman, wonder woman and spongebob squarepants. Others donned military fatigues and called their team the 'crazy commandos'. Another team called themselves 'cirque de sore legs'. Each year, one brave man dresses as a woman to take out the title of 'Miss Hawthorn'. Bands play, pizzas are sold, and coffees are on the boil. This year, 400 people participated in the Hawthorn event.

In conclusion, I would like to pay tribute to the event organisers, including Emily Cusworth from the Cancer Council of Victoria and, in particular, Graeme and Gill Jacobs, who founded the Hawthorn Relay for Life ten years ago after losing their own daughter to cancer. I would also like to pay tribute to my colleagues Ted Baillieu, the former Premier of Victoria, who is the event's patron, John Pesutto, the Member for Hawthorn, and the Mayor of Boroondara, Councillor Coral Ross, all of whom have been great supporters of the event and have watched it go from strength to strength over the last ten years.

Let's just hope a cure for cancer is found before any more lives are lost. But one thing is for certain: the participants in and organiser of the Hawthorn Relay for Life are doing their part to ensure a stronger community and a healthy one, too.

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