Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the motion, brought forward by my good friend the member for McMillan, acknowledging that 33 per cent of the deaths that occur in Australia each year are due to cancer. I know today we are focused on breast cancer, and I note that the member for Bennelong spoke about a very topical issue—the loss of a great journalist, Rebecca Wilson, of late. I also speak with the assistant minister's cap on as well, because it is not just, as we have heard from both sides, the $18.5 million for the McGrath Foundation, for the 57 extra nurses, and for medicines that are going onto the PBS as promptly as possible for treating these diseases, but it is also the research and innovation that this government is funding on a daily basis. In February we had the launch of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, and a key component of that is what I think will become a cornerstone of finding cures for all sorts of cancer, not just breast cancer, and that is the Biomedical Translation Fund. Concord hospital is in my electorate of Reid, and adjoining Concord hospital is the ANZAC Research Institute. Over the last three years as a backbencher I have spent time in that quality research institute with some of the most wonderful clinicians and doctors that you would meet anywhere in the world, and they are coming up with some amazingly innovative discoveries like dendritic cells. These cells can be aimed at particular strains of cancer. We will be interested to see where this goes and what changes in treatments there might be over the next period of clinical trials. That is exactly what this government is trying to foster through that Biomedical Translation Fund.

I note Minister Hunt has made mention in the last few days of our innovation funds more broadly. These are a very practical and innovative way for us as a government to fund innovation. I know that, in travels since being made the minister over the past eight weeks, I have met with many medical translation companies, medical research companies, looking to take science out of tertiary institutions—places like CSIRO—and value add to them with the assistance of government, finding ways to come up with the cures of the future. I hope that in the not too distant future we can stand up in this place and talk about and celebrate and congratulate everyone for the cure of all sorts of cancers, particularly breast cancer. Touch wood I have never had to deal with this first hand but I note that previous speakers have had to deal with this as a family issue. I cannot begin to imagine what that must be like.

To the member for McMillan, again, thank you for raising this most important of topics. I know this is an issue that has bipartisan support. As the member for Bennelong said, cancer is ubiquitous. There is neither rhyme nor reason. It hits and hits hard, and all we can do as a government is work on funding the next generation of scientists and science to cure this and all sorts of medical issues. Earlier in the year we buried one of my good friends, an ex-staffer to Mark Arbib, Bridget Whelan. She died of ovarian cancer. That is another horrible strain of cancer that at this stage does not get the attention and the funding that breast cancer gets, but I hope that, through things like the Medical Translation Fund and innovative approaches like this by governments of both persuasions, in the not too distant future we can stand up here united and celebrate overcoming tragic circumstances that have beset families before but hopefully will never beset them again. Russell, well done.

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