Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Australian Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Authority Amendment (Governance and Other Measures) Bill 2021. As members of the House would probably be aware, I'm the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Organ Donation. I work closely with my co-chair the member for Mallee, Anne Webster, and we have been seeking to promote and raise awareness of organ and tissue donation within the parliament and, indeed, within the wider community. As co-chairs, the member for Mallee and I have the privilege of working with our friends at DonateLife, the Organ and Tissue Authority. The OTA is staffed by a team of dedicated public servants led by the wonderful Lucinda Barry. I thank all of them for the critical role they play in promoting organ donation throughout the country. We've had a couple of functions in Parliament House and we have promulgated a whole range of information for the wider community and for our fellow parliamentarians. We feel this is an extremely important issue, and Australia has been one of the world leaders. Even though we are doing quite well, we have potential to improve our organ donation rate much higher.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure—unfortunately mostly online—of supporting our 10th annual DonateLife Week. This has multipartisan support across the cabinet. I would like to mention the minister for health, Greg Hunt; the shadow minister for health, Mark Butler; the previous minister for regional health, who had responsibility for organ donation, Mark Coulton; Chris Bowen; and David Gillespie. They have all had a strong interest in support for DonateLife and organ and tissue donation, as have many other members of the House. The member for Grey has just spoken very eloquently. The member for Indi has a strong interest in this, as does the member for Higgins and other members across the parliament. It has been great to work in such a committed and bipartisan group whose only interest is improving our organ and tissue donation rates across the community.

This is something that affects all communities. In my work as a paediatrician, I have dealt with many patients who have benefited from organ and tissue donation. I have a very good friend—in fact, I'll be going to dinner at their place tomorrow night here in Canberra—who has had a double lung transplant and, I'm pleased to report, is doing very, very well. And one of my favourite patients—and I know I shouldn't say 'favourite patient', but she is!—is one of the first survivors of liver transplant in the paediatric age group in Australia, young Jessica. So I've had a long involvement with this and I've seen how things have changed.

Our goals, however, remain the same: to increase our organ donation rate to make sure that everyone who needs one or who would benefit by organ or tissue donation can get help with a donated organ. Unfortunately, the pandemic has disrupted a lot of our events over the last 18 months. As I mentioned, this year DonateLife Week went digital through the OTA's Great Registration Race for DonateLife Week. I'm pleased to report that many, many thousands of people across Australia did contribute to this and were part of it. The goal is simple, but it is priceless: the gift of life by encouraging as many Australians as we can to sign up to be organ donors.

I'm a proud card-carrying member of the donor registry and I would encourage anyone who is listening to my speech today to sign up and register as a donor. It's very, very simple. I am a computer and digital troglodyte, but even I can do it, and so if I can do it, anyone can do it. It only takes a minute and, if you could do so, it may well be a life-saving act for someone in the future. People sometimes are a little reluctant to talk about it, I know that. But having the conversation with your family is very important. If you can register to be an organ donor you can do it at www.donatelife.gov.au, and you can do it today. It will only take a minute or two.

Many people are still under the assumption that the old state based drivers licence register is active. People now need to register their interest via the DonateLife website. It only takes a minute but the gift that you could give someone will last a lifetime.

Excuse me, I have to finish my speech there—sorry.

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