Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian National Cancer Screening Register is a world-first digital platform that saves Australian lives. Cancer is a sad fact of life and death in our modern societies, in part because we're living longer. We all know that, generally, the earlier a cancer is diagnosed, the more likely treatment will be successful. That can be difficult because cancer often doesn't become symptomatic until it's large enough to feel or of a size to start interfering with bodily functions, particularly for internal cancers such as lung cancer.

In this country we are lucky enough to have world-class screening programs including the National Cervical Screening Program and the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. Fifteen-and-a-half-thousand people are told they have bowel cancer every year in Australia. Around 850 people are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year—a number likely to continue to fall with the introduction of the HPV vaccine. Around 15,000 people each year are also diagnosed with lung cancer in Australia, and of those about 90 per cent are tobacco related.

Lung cancer accounts for around 9,200 deaths each year in Australia—the highest number of deaths from any particular type of cancer. It has a 22 per cent five-year survival rate, which is really low. That means around one in five people survive five years, partly because it's diagnosed late with advanced cancer. Early detection can increase that five-year survival rate to around 67 per cent, and that's what we're trying to do. This is another step in the war on cancer—this time lung cancer.

In 2020 Cancer Australia produced a report on the feasibility of implementing a national lung cancer screening program in Australia, which recommended a targeted screening program for those with a risk factor of over 1.51 per cent. Cancer Australia estimated that, in the first 10 years of a targeted and risk based national lung cancer screening program, over 12,000 lung cancer deaths would be prevented and up to 500,000 quality-adjusted life years—QALYs—would be gained.

That brings us to the National Cancer Screening Register Amendment Bill 2024. This bill will amend the National Cancer Screening Register Act 2016 to add lung cancer in the definition of 'designated cancer' and in the coverage of the National Cancer Screening Register. The bill will provide the legislative basis for the register to deliver the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, including handling of program participants' personal and sensitive lung cancer screening information. While the bill is small, containing two minor amendments, its impact will be substantial.

The new screening program this bill enables is expected to prevent more than 500 lung cancer deaths every year. The program will target asymptomatic individuals aged 50 to 70 years with a history of cigarette smoking of at least 30 pack years, including former smokers who've quit within the last 10 years. The lung cancer screening program particularly focuses on priority populations, including First Nations people, people living in rural, remote and very remote areas, people with disability and culturally and linguistically diverse groups. They will be screened through a low-dose CT scan which will be non-invasive with no pain.

The program is intended to commence in July 2025. The aim of the program is to reduce the burden of lung cancer in the community, including the incidence of disease, morbidity and mortality. The program will facilitate this by detecting lung cancer earlier than would be the case in the absence of screening, thereby improving health outcomes. Earlier diagnosis means earlier treatment and means you're more likely to be dealing with smaller cancers and cancers that are less likely to have spread. Earlier diagnosis means a higher likelihood of survivability. Inclusion of lung cancer as a designated cancer in the act along with the existing bowel cancer and cervical cancer designations will enable the National Lung Cancer Screening Program to be the third national cancer screening program to be delivered by the register.

The bill will enable the expansion to the new program of the register's purposes that are already in place for the bowel and cervical screening programs. Importantly, adding lung cancer as a designated cancer will extend the existing protections in the act to lung cancer screening information held in the register. These protections include prohibiting the collection, use or disclosure of personal information in the register in connection to the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, outside of the circumstances set out in the act. These limited authorisations ensure that personal information is only collected, recorded, used or disclosed to or from the register for specific purposes.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

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Adding lung cancer as a designated cancer in the act will also extend the existing data breach framework to individuals' lung cancer screening information held in the register. This includes the requirements for notification and handling of contraventions and possible contraventions in relation to protected information.

This government is committed to strengthening Medicare, and this expansion of the national cancer screening program will help deliver better health outcomes for Australians. While prevention is best—and we have strategies to reduce smoking, as we have a bill currently in the House to reduce vaping—early intervention is next best, and this National Lung Cancer Screening Program is early intervention and it will save lives.

I commend the bill to the House.

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