Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to place on the record our thanks to the member for Macarthur for moving this very important motion and bringing this issue to the national parliament. There's no member of parliament better qualified to move a motion such as this, and I congratulate him for doing so.

Prostate cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in Australia, and it's our third most deadly. September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, but the disease impacts the lives of Australian men and their families and loved ones every day of the year. More than 3½ thousand men will die from the disease throughout the year, more than 20,000 Australian men will be diagnosed this year with prostate cancer and around 200,000 are living with a previous diagnosis. Prostate cancer is often a slow-growing disease, and the majority of men with low-grade prostate cancer live for many years without any symptoms and without it spreading and becoming life-threatening. However, if you're afflicted with a high-grade disease it spreads quickly and can be lethal very quickly.

The causes of prostate cancer, whilst they are unknown, have two key factors that men need to be aware of. First is the age of a person. Age is often linked to an increasing chance of developing prostate cancer. The risk of getting prostate cancer by the age of 75 in Australia is one in seven men, while the risk of a male being diagnosed with prostate cancer by his 85th birthday is estimated to be one in six. The chance of developing this cancer increases with age.

Another key factor in terms of being diagnosed with prostate cancer is of course, like many cancers, family history. This also plays a key role. Men with a male first-degree relative with prostate cancer have a higher chance of developing it than men with no such history. The risk increases again if more than one male relative has prostate cancer. So it pays to ask questions amongst paternal relatives within your family regarding the history of this often deadly disease. Risks are also higher for men whose male relatives were diagnosed when they were young.

It's vital that men take their health seriously. Let's face it: in decades gone by, men have tended to try to soldier on when health ailments come on, ignoring them rather than seeking help at an early stage. A lot of Aussie blokes don't get tested and they find out they have it when it's too late. Screening tests are available to help detect cancer in people who don't have any symptoms. In the past, many Australian men may have been turned off by the thought of the snap of the glove and what follows after that, but it couldn't be any further from the truth in terms of the way that screening is undertaken in Australia at the moment. Prostate cancer PSA tests are blood tests which can detect prostate cancer in the bloodstream, removing the need for those more invasive tests of the past.

But, unlike testing for bowel, breast and cervical cancers, there is no national screening program for prostate cancer. The Commonwealth only funds 28 prostate cancer specialist nurses across the nation. It's been great to see in recent years, through the Big Aussie Barbie and the group that's been set up in the parliament—the parliamentary friendship group to raise awareness of prostate cancer—specialists coming to Canberra on an annual basis to provide a PSA test for people who work in this building. In the past, of course, there have been cases where people have undertaken the test and have, unfortunately, found out that they were suffering from this ailment. But it's been diagnosed early and that made sure they could get the appropriate treatment.

Only one in three men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer can access some of the services. Men and their families deserve the best possible care and support when they're diagnosed with prostate cancer. We need to be doing more as a nation to fight our third most deadly cancer. If you're a bloke in your 40s or 50s, please talk to your doctor about doing the PSA blood test. It might just save your life.

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