Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

This Friday, 7 November, the beautiful Riverside Golf Club in Nichols Point, in my electorate of Mallee, will host the Stephen Crawford Memorial Golf Day. The event is run by the local community, for local tradies and others, supporting men's health and the Movember Foundation. The golf day, proudly supported by Total Tools Mildura, honours Stephen Crawford, taken too soon by bowel cancer in February 2022.

Since the first golf day in 2021, this event has raised more than $100,000 for the Movember Foundation. The Stephen Crawford Memorial Golf Day honours a Total Tools team member's husband, and quickly became something much bigger. Total Tools and the team saw an opportunity to make a real community impact, and they have. It's more than just a golf day; it's a testament to what a small community can achieve when they come together with purpose. The team's efforts were recently recognised with a nomination for a Movember award.

I had the pleasure of attending this magnificent charity event for the first time last year, in my previous role as the shadow minister for regional health. I promoted preventive health measures in my electorate, where we have higher morbidity and mortality rates from preventable diseases. I assisted this year by facilitating provision of free health checks via self-service machines provided by SiSU Health. Novo Nordisk has generously funded the provision of these free health checks. The public will be able to come and access a health check even if they are not participating in the golf day—good news for all the wives, perhaps.

Another Mildura local taken too soon was Scott Umback, lost in 2019 of a heart attack, aged just 42. His wife, Katrina Umback, is a passionate and driven advocate for improving access to preventive care for men to ensure others do not experience the same loss she and her boys have endured. Katrina teamed up with La Trobe University to secure a Medical Research Future Fund grant to research and co-design a kit for rural Australians to check their heart health at home. The kit features portable devices for measuring blood pressure, fasting glucose and cholesterol. Katrina says:

This study is a gamechanger for rural and regional Australians, especially those in a city like Mildura, with no Catheterisation Lab or accessible heart disease screening programs.

I'm looking forward to being out at Nichols Point again on Friday morning, promoting preventive heart health and men's health in Sunraysia.

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