Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying before the break, the Rudd government is committed to ensuring that there is a national, coordinated approach to the horrors of cancer in our community. The fight against cancer is our national challenge, and the Rudd Labor government is committed to supporting researchers, clinicians, practitioners, health professionals and people who are working their way through this process individually, with their families, to be involved in immediate cancer research and treatment. This is an issue that relates to all of us and it is all our business, not somebody else’s. We know from the statistics that cancer is Australia’s biggest killer, with more than 35,000 deaths and 88,000 people diagnosed every year.

I have run through a couple of the initiatives that the Rudd government committed to in its first budget, but one thing I want to talk about just briefly in this last five minutes and 40 seconds is the issue of bowel cancer in our community. We know that there has been an ongoing process of looking at this issue and we have had research and gathering of information across the community for the last two to three years. In the budget, we have determined that we will expand that, because it has been demanded of us by the people who care most—the people who are suffering and who think there must be a way to survive this disease. Each week about 80 Australians die from bowel cancer, and one in 22 Australians is likely to develop this disease at some point in their life. It is one of the diseases in Australia that we should be most concerned about, yet sometimes we tend to push it aside and hope that it will go somewhere else.

As well as testing for people turning 50 in 2008-10, testing will continue for people turning 55 or 65 years of age in this period. The national program, which will be funded through the budget, will cost $87.4 million over three years. This is a large commitment, a large amount of money going to the problem, and certainly it reinforces that we believe it to be an important issue for all of us. It is something a lot of community groups have been working on. I want to give particular credit to the Rotary association across Australia, which does many good things and which, as one of its key initiatives over the last few years, has been looking at the issue of bowel cancer in the community. I know that it is pleased by this budget announcement. It is something that meets with its cause to work with people across the country.

I have described the larger commitments of money in our budget, but there are a number of local measures that came through election commitments last year and through working with people at a local level. It is worthwhile mentioning them in this contribution looking at budget appropriations. We have committed to investing in radiation oncology services in Cairns and in north-north-west Tasmania—you could find few parts of Australia more distant than Cairns in my part of the world, which Senator Jan McLucas also knows so well, and north-north-west Tasmania. There will be PET facilities for the Royal Hobart Hospital—I know that Tasmanians have been waiting for a long time to have their own facilities in Tasmania rather than having to travel to the mainland when they need this incredibly valuable service—and the Calgary Mater hospital in Newcastle, and we are also looking at fast-tracking radiotherapy services at Lismore Base Hospital. All these initiatives have been funded through the health budget.

I am very proud that our government has decided to invest this much of taxpayers’ money in something that is so important for people across the community. It follows from recommendations made through previous cancer inquiries by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, and I know the people who worked on those inquiries will be well pleased at the response to recommendations about care coordination, specialist services for young people and teenagers who are facing this process and the incredibly important elements of research and clinical trials. These areas came up consistently through the community affairs inquiries. We are pleased that the government have looked at those recommendations and now, with the overall support of Cancer Australia, will be able to look at results and supporting people through their own very tough cancer journey. We will be able to learn from their strength and put into place effective funding to ensure that that journey will be supported not just by family and friends but by the government to whom they turn.