Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning on the grass in front of Parliament House I attended the launch of the Move movement, a rather innovative approach to raising money for medical research, hosted by the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research in my electorate of Parramatta. The institute has 450 researchers and is one of the most highly regarded in the country.

The concept is rather interesting. It allows community members to raise money for medical research over a six-month period next year simply by moving or exercising. They can walk, run, cycle, swim or do any other form of movement they can think of, and I already have a Tai Chi class and a group of dancers who are interested in participating early next year. The project through the country is linked through the Move movement website, where participants can log on and record their progress towards their target during the six-month period.

In my electorate I will be starting a small cycling group with a target of 100 kilometres for people who have not ridden for a while. We will be cycling 10 or 12 small rides on the local bike paths over that six-month period, adding up to about 100 kilometres. Other groups may walk or run in a similar way. For people who are interested in larger challenges they can walk the distance of the Inca Trail, for example, and mark on the website each day where they have walked. If they complete the walk and raise a certain amount of money they actually win a real trip to the Inca Trail.

This morning I was joined in the launch by a number of other members of parliament who participated in a boot camp for a few minutes. I would like to thank them for doing that. I am sure the media that was present got some very interesting shots of members of parliament engaging in some boxercise and dragging large tires up and down the grass outside of Parliament House. Tomorrow I will launch the Move movement officially by beginning a ride from Canberra back to Parramatta. I will be joined by Chris Hayes, the member for Werriwa, who like me is also literally riding home, and Bernie Ripoll, the member for Oxley in Queensland, who will join us for a few days but is not riding all the way home back to Brisbane—although, Bernie is fit enough to do that if he chose to do it.

The great thing about the Move movement concept is that it works for everybody. Fit people can set a challenge that works for them. People who have forgotten how to exercise, have not done so or have been intending to, can start in a very easy way and work with others on meeting their goals over the six-month period.

It is important for us to remember that even though we have a department for health that deals mainly with the treatment of illness, health is not just about treating illness, nor is it just about preventing illness. It is actually about being healthy for the quality of life that brings and for the things that you can do if you are healthy that you cannot do when you not, such as enjoying the outdoors, bushwalking, playing with your children, just going for a walk or walking the dog. It is a major part of life and it is good to see a charity in my electorate coming up with such an interesting approach to raising money for medical research which will encourage that particular kind of activity.

I encourage every member of the House to think about ways they can encourage their communities to get out and move more. Again, this is not just to help prevent some chronic diseases, such as diabetes, but because of the quality of life. There is a group of senior Chinese-Australians in my community that does ballroom dancing every Thursday and I could see ways of encouraging other members of the community to join them over the six-month period. They could rack up some points and help raise money by doing that. Similarly, there is a free Tai Chi class out the front of the town hall all every morning. Again, I can think of ways of encouraging the community to join that in order to raise money for medical research. There is a walking group in Kings Langley that goes twice a week from the local shopping centre, another great group of people. Exercise using this concept allows you to meet new people, exercise for your own health and raise money for one of the best medical research facilities in the country at the same time. It is a fantastic concept. I was pleased to be at the launch and I am going to be very pleased to be a part of it.