Address to Cancer Council Morning Tea, Adelaide
Posted on Thursday, 19 January 2012
E&OE……………………….……………………………………………………………
Brenda and Juliet, thank you so much for inviting me and my colleagues Andrew Southcott and Kevin Andrews here today. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for making me and my colleagues so welcome. I just want to say first of all, thank you to the Cancer Council for the work you do. You do an enormous amount of very important work, funding research is an important part of it, but providing support to people who have just been diagnosed with cancer, who are going through the often trauma of treatment for cancer, is at the heart of your work and without the helpline, without the accommodation services, without the general atmosphere of support and encouragement that you create, a lot of people’s lives would be much, much worse.
So, I want to thank you and congratulate you for the work that you do and I want to pledge all reasonable support from the Coalition to the work that you do, but I particularly want to say to the volunteers, thank you; because all of these organisations depend upon the work of people who aren’t working for money, but who are working for love. It’s not the things we have to do, it’s the things we choose to do which makes us human beings, and I think to see a room full of people who are proud to help, who are happy to help, who are dispensing that priceless quality of passion to their fellow human beings in need, it’s really very encouraging, and I think that this is part of what makes us the country we are, that we have people like you, who are prepared to turn up and help and do it to a high level of professionalism, even though you are volunteers. So I just want to say thank you.
Yes Brenda, I’m a former Health Minister and I’m pleased that as Health Minister I was able to continue and extend the work that the Howard Government did with bowel cancer screening. I think this is unfinished business for our country and while I accept that there are very severe fiscal restraints on government at the moment, it has to be a strong national aspiration to get a full and comprehensive bowel cancer screening programme into place as soon as we reasonably can.
As Health Minister, I was very proud to be part of a government which doubled research spending, that funded, amongst other anti-cancer drugs, Herceptin, that established Cancer Australia, that radically expanded Federal Government support for radiation oncology services and I think all of this was important, but health is always a work in progress. We can never say that the acme of achievement has arrived. There is always going to be new treatments, new diagnoses, better support that can be given. It all costs money and the important thing for government is yes, to fund the services, but above all else, to build the strong economy which will make the services possible and perhaps even more to create the kind of good hearted society that thinks that these are very important priorities for all of us.
Finally, I just want to say that both of my colleagues, Kevin and Andrew aren’t just here to eat, they’re here to ride, because this ride that will be taking place tomorrow, is not just an opportunity for fit people, young and not so young to get out and wear lycra, it’s an opportunity for us to raise money for a very, very good cause. Andrew and Kevin have said that they’re going to do the full 138 kilometres and if they ride slow enough, well, I might even be able to keep up with them. That’s my objective and I’m very pleased to be able to participate. I keep saying to people, it’s not a race, it’s a ride, we’re not competitors, we’re participants, but what better thing to be participating in.
Thanks very much.
[ends]
19 January 2012