Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Canberra for coming out in their thousands—1,800, to be precise—yesterday morning to take part in the DonateLife Walk 2011. The walk was launched by the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Catherine King. This is the fifth year of the walk, which was named in honour of Terry Connolly, a former ACT Supreme Court judge, a former ACT Attorney-General and an organ donor. Terry was a much-loved member of the Canberra community who died of a heart attack while bike riding up Red Hill. He was only 50 years old. Terry’s daughters, Lara and Maddy, were students at St Clare’s College in Canberra, and the school has always been a strong supporter of the walk.

Yesterday the girls were out in full force again, and they were the only ones to make the sun hats look glamorous and cool, much to the chagrin of everyone else! They were supported by Daramalan and Marist colleges and the boys and girls grammar schools. Teams from the Australian Electoral Commission, the Australian National University, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Department of Health and Ageing and ACT government departments were also walking and running.

I would like to thank the members and senators who joined us for the walk yesterday morning, particularly those new members of the Parliamentary Friends of Organ and Tissue Donation that the member for Brisbane and I established a few weeks ago, in time for DonateLife Week this week. Finally, I would like to congratulate the parliamentary secretary for yesterday’s appointment of four well-known Australians as DonateLife ambassadors. The new ambassadors, Amanda Keller, Denise Drysdale, Derryn Hinch and Tania Major, join the Governor-General, who is the inaugural ambassador.