Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the previous speakers, and the member for Wannon for bringing this motion to the House. It is a very important motion and obviously a very important issue. The previous member talked about a sunburnt country and the changing attitudes to the sun. I think we can all remember being sunburnt at one time or another. I remember getting my shins terribly burnt one swimming carnival when I was at Kapunda High, and I was not all that keen on replicating that experience. It always sticks in my mind, and I think that most Australians at one time or another have been badly sunburnt. I suppose that is a lesson for us all.

This motion brings a pretty important issue, the march for melanoma. Getting the community out there and bringing up awareness is a very, very important issue, and having people participate in that and raise money raises community awareness and it also means that governments of all persuasions have a slightly easier job in partnering with community organisations, particularly on research.

The critical thing for South Australians to remember here is that the march is held in Henley Beach. It is a small four kilometre walk, something that the community can get involved with, for what is a very, very good cause. In 2011—and these are the most recent figures we have—there were 702 new melanoma cases in South Australia identified and 102 deaths, tragically. We know that it is responsible for eight per cent of all youth deaths in Australia and that it is the most common form of cancer in Australians aged 15 to 39.

So it is a terrible burden on those individuals and a very important issue for our health system. It is interesting to note that men are twice as likely as women to die from melanoma. That is probably down to accessing general practitioners; men are notorious for letting things slide, in terms of their own health. That is something we all have to be cognisant of, because, in terms of skin cancer, leaving it—letting it slide not getting it checked—is actually one of the worst things you can do. That is why when we have debates on other things—access to general practitioners, making sure people do not have barriers in the way of them seeing a general practitioner are important things for all of us to be cognisant of.

The key messages are the same ones of my youth. I remember the ads coming on—slip, slop, slap—and they had some sort of cartoon bird, I think, singing a song. That has got a lot more sophisticated; it is now, 'Slip, slop, slap, seek and slide'—seeking shade and sliding on sunglasses are the important additions. They are important measures to make sure that people do not get skin cancers.

If moles look different—if they change colour, if there is a new mole after you are 25—you really do need to get that checked quickly. Obviously, we are not always as individuals in the best position to judge what is dangerous and what is not. And seeing a GP is the best course of action.

These events, as with so many other events in the health sector, are basically formed around personal experience. In this case it is a man losing his 18-year-old son to melanoma. It is important that that initial act of care and love does not get lost. It is important that we continue these events. With should all contribute as best we can to the goal, which is to raise $1 million in 2015 to fund a research project of national importance to help find better cures and better treatments for what is a very debilitating set of cancers that Australians in particular face, and South Australians particularly, because we do live indeed in a sunburnt country.

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