Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a topic which some in this chamber will understand is quite a difficult topic to talk about at the moment: lung cancer. I do so because there has never been a more important time to talk about it. We need to talk about it, and we especially need to talk about the stigma associated with it.

Lung cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in Australia. According to the Lung Foundation Australia, approximately 12,000 Australian men and women were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019—that's approximately 35 people each day. Lung cancer is also Australia's biggest killer from cancer. Sadly, it takes the lives of more Australians than breast, prostate and ovarian cancers combined. We lose 25 lung cancer patients each day. There are many more statistics that I could list about lung cancer, but those touched by this horrible disease know them all too well, and I don't need to repeat them here. Instead, I'll talk about the statistics related to the stigma that surrounds lung cancer because the lack of empathy that we see for people with this disease is confronting and is standing in the way of a better approach to this disease.

We know that over one-third of Australians consider those with lung cancer to be their own worst enemy. One in 10 Australians will say, 'They got what they deserved.' This lack of empathy towards people with lung cancer is said to be associated with a view held by the public that lung cancer equates to tobacco smoking. Ninety per cent of Australians believe that smoking is the only cause of lung cancer, which is just untrue. One in three women and one in 10 men diagnosed with lung cancer have no history of smoking. That means that on average one in five people living with lung cancer are lifelong non-smokers. It's actually occupational exposure that creates a lot of lung cancer and there are other proven factors, including genetics and pollution.

Notwithstanding any of this, we cannot judge smokers or former smokers of the past on the standards we have today, because it was only in 2006 that graphic health warnings became required on the packaging of most tobacco products and only in 2011 that the first complete state or territory ban on point-of-sale tobacco product displays was implemented. Some Australians smoked, but that doesn't mean their suffering is deserved or justified. Many of us in this place have been touched by lung cancer in some way, and have experienced the stigma firsthand. I lost both my Nanna Jean and my Uncle Ian to lung cancer, and the first question asked of our family was, 'Did either of them smoke?' They didn't, but it should never have mattered. They were both taken from us in their 60s: two wonderful people, their lives cut way too short by this horrific disease.

But not every lung cancer story ends this way. I recently had pleasure of meeting two survivors, my constituents Lorraine and Sandy from South Australia. They're both survivors and some of the strongest people I've ever had the opportunity to meet in this job. Their experiences, especially of stigma, were heartbreaking. Lorraine, in particular, shared her story and experience as a double cancer survivor. She had breast cancer, and when she had breast cancer she felt this warm embrace from the community of medical and social support around her. She felt as if she had an army of support behind her. But when she was diagnosed with lung cancer she couldn't even access a lung cancer nurse to answer her most basic questions. She described the journey of being diagnosed with lung cancer as an incredibly lonely one.

No patient, no cancer sufferer, should ever have to feel that way. One of the major repercussions of this stigma is the lack of resourcing, the lack of concern and the lack of government support. This impacts in terms of research, treatment and healthcare shortages. We see an abundance of support and funding for breast cancer—and I'm not saying that that shouldn't be there—but lung cancer is lacking and lung cancer is a terrible and large killer in Australia. Despite its impact, it receives very little research funding and surely now, during this pandemic, when the spotlight is on respiratory disease, is the time that we can look at lung cancer. We can do what we can as a community to address the stigma which surrounds the disease, because no-one deserves it and no-one deserves the suffering. No family deserves to witness that suffering and no-one deserves to feel like they go through a disease like that on their own. So I call on the government tonight to do more to address the shortfalls we know exist in lung cancer funding to help stop this suffering and to stop the stigma associated with this terrible disease.