Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

INK () (): October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual event that for years has given both me and thousands of Australian women and their families reason to pause, reflect and, in many instances, complete regular check-ups. One in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Whilst detection, treatment and support have all come an incredibly long way in the past 20 years, we will not have gone far enough or fast enough until there are zero deaths from breast cancer in our country.

As more than just awareness, I want to acknowledge the continued struggle of people experiencing breast cancer to access the absolute best treatments, which I believe is a fundamental right in Australia. Yesterday, along with others from the Parliamentary Friends of Cancer Care and Cure, I had the privilege of hosting Pink Hope, an incredible national charity that is dedicated to empowering people to take charge of their own health by assessing, understanding and reducing their risk of breast cancer, whilst practically supporting them every step of the way. They brought with them an incredible community of those with lived experience, medical professionals and advocates.

Renee shared her and her family's personal story of her diagnosis of breast cancer, attributed to a BRCA1 gene fault. Her courage and bravery were truly inspiring. The BRCA journey is truly heinous for women, and her family has been there every step of the way. She spoke passionately about her greatest fear in her diagnosis being not her own experience of the disease but the fact that she recognised that, by being diagnosed with the gene, her children would potentially face the same future.

While there are many reasons to have hope, and the innovation in the treatment space is one that provides a particular light, we must face the fact that our current drug approval system is not fit for purpose. Yesterday, we heard of an incredible drug called Keytruda, which is the kind of innovation in immunotherapy that is bringing us close to actually curing cancer. Keytruda has been available in the US for over 40 cancers for the last three years, yet here in Australia we have only just approved it as of 1 September for metastatic breast cancer. We eagerly await the approval of Keytruda to treat early-stage breast cancer, hopefully on 1 November this year, and I call on the government to prioritise that approval and that provision. It has moved through all of the technical processes; it simply needs to be put into the system. Every week that we delay that, four women are dying. This is unacceptable.

At the same time, we need to review our screening protocols and practices in Australia. We must move beyond what has been the case for 30 years and bring ourselves into this decade for what people deserve. In many ways, breast cancer has led the way. We must continue to let it lead the way in other cancers.