John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Shortland for raising this motion promoting lung health awareness, including November as Lung Health Awareness Month, together with 17 November as International Lung Cancer Awareness Day and 18 November as World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day.

The issues raised through these awareness events are of great importance, as one in seven deaths in Australia results from lung disease. This disease is the cause of over 275,000 hospitalisations annually, representing approximately three per cent of all hospitalisations. This equates to more than 1.4 million hospital patient days, and therefore represents a significant issue for our healthcare system to address. This issue is not limited to smokers—2.3 million Australians have asthma and 1.5 million Australians aged over 40 have some form of airflow limitation. Over 11,000 Australians are diagnosed with lung cancer each year. The most important thing we can do for all these people is to encourage early diagnosis—whether it is the four-year-old child with undiagnosed asthma or the long-term smoker suffering from breathlessness that could be a COPD or a malignant tumour.

Over the past few years I have been fortunate to work with and support the efforts of Lung Foundation Australia to promote awareness of this range of illnesses. Recently this included the auctioning of a charity item—two hours of tennis with the legendary Ken Rosewall—supported by me.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

This item had actually been auctioned for a charity at the Midwinter Ball and was purchased by my good friend Wes Cook from Boehringer Ingelheim, who then generously donated it for re-auction at the Lung Foundation of Australia's annual gala dinner. The bidding for this item, as you would expect, was magnificent. As it approached about $5,000 there were two very keen competitors and, not wanting to see either of theme lose, I came up with the great idea of doing two at $5,000 each, so we would raise $10,000 instead of $5,000. Then came the job of going to Ken and saying, 'Mate, you have to do two clinics, not just one.' We celebrated Ken's birthday last week—he turned 81, despite doing four hours of tennis one Saturday morning! What a great man.

More recently my office has worked with the Lung Foundation in the promotion of a new annual event called QUIT4october, a campaign championed by Lung Foundation Australian in partnership with the Association for Smoking Cessation Professionals and generously sponsored by Bennelong-based businesses Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. The City of Ryde in Bennelong was chosen as one of four pilot locations for this initiative. Following successful programs like Dry July, QUIT4october encourages smokers to have a break from smoking for the month of October. We are conscious this is a big ask with nicotine being such a addictive drug; however, if even one person learns through this program that they can control their smoking habit, then the campaign would be seen as a success.

Recently I have also written to the health minister in support of the Lung Foundation's application to the MSAC for pulmonary rehabilitation programs and follow-up pulmonary maintenance exercise programs for patients with chronic lung disease to be subsidised by Medicare Benefits Scheme. Pulmonary rehabilitation is an exercise program that is well documented as the most effective evidence-based intervention for improving outcomes for patients with chronic lung disease. This means that pulmonary rehabilitation patients are kept out of hospitals. Currently, pulmonary rehabilitation is conducted mainly in hospitals, and therefore is accessible to only about five per cent of the population, with only 260 programs to meet the needs of more than 750,000 patients. This has a particular impact on people located in regional areas.

Since my maiden speech in this place five years ago, I have spoken of the importance of exercise as a preventive medicine measure. Exercise is the single best thing you can do for your physical health. It is the single best thing you can do for your mental health. Exercising with diet will optimise your results. Exercising with friends or playing sport with friends will also give you social engagement and social health. My tip to everybody is to exercise, to diet and to do it with mates. Win, lose or draw, we will be better off.

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