Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 14 October, the Friends of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, which the member for Lindsay and I are co-convenors of, held a barbecue. I was very sad to hear at that event that the CEO of the National Stroke Foundation, Dr Erin Lalor, was retiring. I have had a working relationship with Erin over a number of years and she has made a fantastic contribution in this area. She has been the CEO of the National Stroke Foundation since 2002 and prior to that she was a speech therapist. She has twice been nominated, in 2007 and 2013, for the Victorian Telstra Business Woman of the Year award. In addition, she was listed in 2013 in the top 100 women of influence in Australia. Erin worked as a speech pathologist prior to undertaking research into stroke services and language impairment, and completed her PhD in cognitive neuropsychology in 1997. She represents the Stroke Foundation on the National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance and the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, and is co-chair of the Australian Stroke Coalition, director of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, chair of the AIHW National Vascular Diseases Monitoring Advisory Group as well as a director of the World Stroke Organization and a member of the World Stroke Campaign Committee.

Erin has lobbied strongly over a number of years on behalf of people who have been living with stroke. She has made an enormous contribution in this space. She has raised the prominence of stroke within this parliament. She has met with many, many people over time and has been instrumental in a number of changes that have occurred in that space. Whilst talking about Erin, it is important to note that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in Australia. Cardiovascular disease is heart stroke and blood diseases. It kills one Australian every 12 minutes. It affects more than one in six Australians—that is, 3.72 million people. In 2012-13, there were over 500,000 hospitalisations, and that number is only going to grow with our ageing population. We need to take cardiovascular disease very seriously.

Recently, I spoke at a Heart Foundation seminar here in Parliament House. The focus of that seminar was 'move more, sit less'. Out of that came an argument for Australia to have a national physical activity action plan. I am strongly supportive of that notion. It does not need to be something that costs a lot of money. Physical inactivity causes 14,000 deaths each year. It is imperative that we have in place a plan that is going to enable Australians to be more active and for children to walk and cycle to school. We need to support local government to deliver better places and infrastructure for physical activity and to support children to engage in physical activity—sport and recreation—and to provide for the needs of all Australians, young and old, to see that they remain more active. I will finish where I started by thanking Dr Erin Lalor for her enormous contribution. (Time expired)