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

Today, I rise to speak on an issue that is extremely close to my heart: lung cancer. Lung cancer is a cruel and evil disease. It has stolen people that I love too painfully and too quickly, and I know I'm not alone. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Australia. Forty-two per cent of diagnoses happen at stage 4. Once diagnosed, the five-year survival rate is just 22 per cent, but you wouldn't necessarily know it because the stigma that has so unfairly surrounded this disease has kept it and its sufferers in the darkness for too long, without the support, research or funding needed to save lives.

No more! After decades of advocacy, the plight of those fighting lung cancer is finally in the light. Last week, I watched as health minister, Mark Butler, announced a $260 million national lung cancer screening program. It is a screening program that is set to prevent thousands and thousands of deaths from lung cancer, and which would have prevented the deaths of people I know. I couldn't be more proud of this announcement and what it will mean for those people we would lose without it and for every family member, every parent, every child, every husband and every wife who won't have to say goodbye to their loved one because we now have this program.

I want to pay tribute to Lung Foundation Australia, to Mark and Paige, and to every advocate I've met in the campaign to get this program established, including those advocates who are no longer with us to see the result. To Lorraine, Sandy and their beautiful nurse, Mel, in Adelaide: be proud of the role you've played in saving thousands of lives. In government, we get to do good, powerful things. This is a good, powerful thing, and I am damn proud of it.