Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House this evening to acknowledge and honour those learned men and women who are our medical researchers, especially those at the Millennium Foundation in Western Sydney. They spend their working careers trying to decipher the human body and how it works, often without recognition of their determination, their vision or their hard work. These researchers are often spurred on by the dream of making a difference to humanity and of finding cures for debilitating diseases. Medical researchers are often encouraged and supported by the community and by the fundraising efforts of those volunteers that support them from time to time.

In Australia there are some extraordinary researchers who are trying to develop an early detection system for ovarian cancer, a cancer that affects many Australian women. They are doing this because more than 800 women a year, every year, in Australia die of ovarian cancer—some of them as young as nine years old. The reason so many people are dying of ovarian cancer is because at this stage we do not have an early detection system in place. Compared to breast cancer and even prostate cancer research, ovarian cancer research is about 10 years behind. So it is so important that we come up with an early detection system as soon as we possibly can.

In 1998, I set a new vertical record running up and down Sydney Centrepoint Tower. I ran 101,939 stairs in 24 hours. I did this to raise funds for the autism association. On 14 December this year, I will run up and down Sydney Centrepoint Tower again—that is only seven days away from this point in time—and I will attempt to break my own world record. I will be joined by my super fit colleague the Hon. Tony Abbott, Minister for Health and Ageing and the member for Warringah. Together we will attempt to get each step sponsored in our goal to raise $1 million for ovarian cancer research. By getting each step sponsored, the minister for health and I hope to assist the Australian medical researchers to find an early detection system for ovarian cancer.

I am doing this run because I feel passionately that no Australian family should have to suffer the loss of a wife, a mother, a daughter or a sister to ovarian cancer. We have the talent in this country to lead the way in medical research and to find an early detection system. I urge all members of the House and all Australians to please get behind the Hon. Tony Abbott and me as we venture not only to set a new world record but, more importantly, to raise significant funds for ovarian cancer research on 14 and 15 December this year.

I would like to acknowledge the support that I have received from my colleagues and from members of the staff here in the House on both sides of parliament. People have come together. They are supporting this run. They are getting behind this medical research because they know that this crosses all boundaries, that this cancer is like so many cancers that people are afflicted with: it knows no boundaries, no ties and it affects everybody—the families of the people that suffer from this debilitating disease as well as the people themselves. I would like to sincerely thank each and every person that has already supported me in this plight and I would like to encourage every Australian that looks upon this journey in my life as a journey in their own life to make a difference to all Australians.