Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I also thank the member for Perth for bringing forward this motion for debate and for sharing Mr Dyke's story with us. It's a truly shocking statistic: nine deaths every day from prostate cancer, including, in the last couple of days, famous tennis player Peter McNamara. He was one of the two Mcs—Peter McNamara and Paul McNamee—who were so famous for winning all those tennis tournaments for Australia. Peter was just 64—my condolences to his family.

It is a very common story that so many families experience—one of their loved ones being taken from them too early. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge a friend of mine, Katie Woolf, a radio presenter up in Darwin, who lost her father, Rod, to prostate cancer. She has done a heap of work in Darwin raising awareness and funds. Father's Day this year will be the fifth time that Katie and her team have organised the Run with Dad fun run at Darwin's East Point Reserve. If anyone happens to be up in Darwin on Father's Day, come and join in. The funds raised go towards extra prostate cancer nurses for the Top End. It is a great initiative, as is this initiative today from my friend, the member for Perth.

We think that our health as Australians is generally pretty good, but, as blokes, we do face a lot of challenges to our health. I've become even more aware of that in the last couple of years, working as an ambassador for men's health in federal Labor. A couple of years ago, we had a national male health forum, where we got a heap of fantastic advice on male health from experts around Australia. I say 'male health' because it's the health and wellbeing of young boys as well as that of men—all males. If we can start off with our youngsters appreciating the importance of regular check-ups, then they're going to be less likely to try to avoid GPs and more likely to get the tests that could save their lives. With young adult males, we know that we've got high levels of mental ill health and death from preventable causes such as accidents. Obviously, death by suicide is a major problem in our country, and we need to do more to battle it.

I note that the government has produced a national men's health strategy for 2020 to 2030 that aims to build on the 2010 National Male Health Policy, and I think there is a lot of common ground between the government and the opposition in this space. I would certainly be keen, as I know the member for Perth would be, to work constructively with the government. I think there's a lot that we need to do, though, to implement the men's health strategy. Strategies are good, but it's the implementation and the resourcing of those strategies that's really important. We need to make sure that we've got the policies right, particularly in rural and regional areas of Australia, because we know that ill health is a big problem there. We also want to make sure that we consult, keep consulting and keep consulting more with relevant communities about their specific health needs, whether it be First Nations communities, gay and bisexual men and their communities, or culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Wherever there are communities where we can do things better and in a more appropriate way, we should absolutely be doing that.

So my message to the blokes of Australia is: go and get your prostate check done. As the member for Blaxland said, by encouraging men to do that, you will, without a doubt, save lives—and that's a really important thing.

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