Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, 25 October, is Pink Ribbon Day. It is recognition of breast cancer as one of the most common forms of cancer to affect women, although a very small number of men can also have this disease. It is a disease which takes the lives of women in their prime, who are young mothers, but on average the age of diagnosis is at 60. The risk of developing breast cancer does increase with age, and one in nine women will be diagnosed with breast cancer by the time they are 85. Great advances have been made in diagnosis and treatments and breast cancer is no longer inevitably a death sentence for women, as it once was. However, this year over 12,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and this is expected to increase by 22 per cent by 2015.

Much of the funding for the research that now leads to early diagnosis and better treatments has been raised by voluntary groups in the Australian community and internationally, but trusts like the Jane McGrath Foundation just cannot be overlooked as some of the most significant new entrants in the area of trying to increase consciousness of younger women needing breast screening. We acknowledge in particular the Jane McGrath Foundation for the support it gives to women with cancer in my part of northern Victoria, the electorate of Murray. I want to focus on my Goulburn Valley community in the seat of Murray, which has done more than its fair share of the heavy lifting in raising money for cancer research over the last nine years. That is in particular as a result of the annual Relay for Life. Of course, that relay was held just two weekends ago. I have been the patron of the Relay for Life in the Goulburn Valley over the period of its work—some nine years—and I have to say that despite the worst drought on record this embattled community has raised more than $2 million for cancer research. We are, in our part of the world, unfortunately particularly prone to certain sorts of cancer.

I want to say, though, that this morning over 700 women attended a breakfast at the Goulburn Valley Hotel. This is the fourth year the event has been held, and it was the brainchild of the Shepparton News Classified Manager, Tracey Bell. She came up with the idea four years ago and it has gone from strength to strength. The breakfast is hoping to raise over $30,000 this year. Just as the Relay for Life taps into the community, raising funds from local organisations, families and sporting clubs, the breakfast this morning had sponsors including the SN Weekly, Blizzards Fine Jewellers, Telstra Stores Shepparton, Showcase Jewellers and Pandora, the Peter and Maria Copulos Foundation, GV Imaging Group, GV Hotel, Shepparton Private Hospital, Bunnings Warehouse and Solar City Office Equipment. This is a great community get-together to try and deal with cancer, because we are particularly affected in our part of the world, being rural and regional. It is harder for women, first of all, to have early diagnosis and then they often have to travel away from home for their treatments.

This morning was a particular tribute to Tracey Jackson, just 37, with a daughter, Rhiana, aged nine, and her husband, Scott. Tracey lost her battle with breast cancer just a few weeks ago. She came to my office back when she was first diagnosed in 2006. Her case was not and is not unusual, unfortunately, for rural women. She had noticed lumps in her breast 2½ years before. She had been to her doctor, who had told her not to worry—they were simply blocked milk ducts. And 2½ years later she was finally diagnosed by another doctor as having, tragically, third stage breast cancer. She was given the all clear for a while, but then it was found that the cancer had gone right through her body and finally into her brain. It is a tragic story of missed diagnosis, of an opportunity for a long life lost.

There has been a lot of research into the realities of an early diagnosis of breast cancer for many rural and regional women. There has been recent research published which followed on from reviews of a huge sample of women in South Australia and New South Wales. What it found was that the women typically had to be away from home for six or seven weeks at a time for their treatments. For a lot of them, that put enormous strain on their young families or their caring partners. Many of them had great financial distress and worries in relation to that time away from home. Very few could access financial support, even when they were eligible, because of the difficulties, the criteria and the red tape involved. I think that is something that this government should look very seriously at. It is a great shame if there is a substantial difference, too, in early detection of something like breast cancer for women in rural and regional areas when there are such things as mobile breast screening clinics. I have to commend BreastScreen Australia, who have been doing a fantastic job.

I also commend the McGrath Foundation. They have made it possible for three breast care nurses to be funded in the Goulburn Valley. One of the problems for our women who are diagnosed with breast cancer is that they live on remote farms and it is difficult for them to get the right postoperative or posttreatment support. I will not forget being in the small town of Stanhope, when a woman came with her supporter, a dear friend, to the community centre so distressed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She had received some treatment, but because she was literally a few kilometres over the border—in the Loddon Mallee health region—she was not eligible to get support from the breast care nurses who would have been available if she had been a few kilometres further east in the Hume region. There she was, in great need and great distress, needing a breast care nurse’s support, but because of a few kilometres on a map she was unable to access that support. We were able to deal with that issue, but it is typical of the sorts of problems rural women often encounter when they are trying to access services that metropolitan populations often simply take for granted.

I also draw attention to the member for Pearce, who is beside me in the chamber today—the Hon. Judi Moylan. In 1994 she brought to the House a recommendation for a ‘Beat breast cancer lobby for life’ effort to raise money and draw attention of the then Keating Labor government to the great needs of women with breast cancer. She was able to bring forward 100,000 signatures on a petition that did finally make a difference. The Keating government acknowledged, finally, the problem. At the time, the Minister for Human Services and Health was Carmen Lawrence. So some government funding was committed to this very serious problem. I commend that very early work of the member for Pearce and say that it has been a long haul for a lot of women in Australia to have this disease recognised as significant and to have access to the diagnostic services that are so important for early detection.

I also commend those younger women in Australia who have had the misfortune of a diagnosis—people like Tracey Jackson, who has lost her life. Before she died, she became an advocate for making sure people have early screening. She has left a young daughter, who is just nine years old, and a grieving husband. The loss of her life cannot be in vain if a lot of younger women around her no longer take their age as a reason for not seeking early detection. If there is the slightest indication, the slightest lump or the slightest change, that should give them some suspicion that they need to have something checked.

It is important to look at the difference in the survival rates and early detection rates of rural and regional versus metropolitan women. It should not be the case either that Indigenous women—particularly Torres Strait Islanders and Australian Aboriginal women—have a higher rate of incidence of breast cancer. We have to make sure that the differences that bring about those higher rates are better understood and that those women have better treatment and earlier diagnosis.

I commend the member who has brought forward this motion today, which is Pink Ribbon Day. Let us hope that the 12,000 women who will be diagnosed with breast cancer today do not have a death sentence but rather will be able to enjoy the treatments that have been discovered and the fundraising that has meant that more of that research is on the table. It has been a magnificent effort, often from communities that have had very little to spare over their years of drought and distress. There has often been a community response to this disease, and I certainly commend this motion to the House.

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