Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had the pleasure of co-hosting a function here at Parliament House with the Garvan Research Foundation, in my capacity as Chair of the Standing Committee on Health. This was a bipartisan event that highlighted the importance of medical research to members in this place, and the need to invest in preventative medicine, as this coalition government is doing.

Although the work that the Garvin Research Foundation and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research do is vital to Australia's medical research future, this event also served as the parliamentary launch of the Connie Johnson Fellowship. For those members who are not aware, Connie Johnson founded the Love Your Sister campaign with her brother Samuel, which funds the fellowship, after she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Her story is one that could pull on the heart strings of everyone, and it is a tragedy. It is one that, I believe, touched every member who attended last week's event. Connie is a courageous woman who is in the middle of her

third fight with cancer. Rather than letting this disease beat her, she is using her time left on this earth to raise funds and awareness of breast cancer, which is the most common cancer in Australian women.

Connie's brother Samuel has also done much more than simply support his sister on a personal level, with members, perhaps, recalling Samuel's campaign to unicycle around Australia in recognition of Connie's battle. He raised $2 million.

My sincere thanks to Connie for sharing her story with the members last week, and for turning her own experiences into a way to help reduce the amount of women who would have to fight this same battle in the future. Congratulations also to Dr Elgene Lim, from the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, who was the inaugural recipient of the Connie Johnson Fellowship.