Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to talk about an event that I'll be hosting in coming weeks. On Wednesday 10 September, from 11.30 am, I'll be hosting my annual Big Aussie Barbie to raise funds for prostate cancer research and, more importantly, to raise awareness of the disease and specifically of the need for blokes to get tested. This is the 10th year that I've hosted that event. I do it in partnership with the Limestone Coast Prostate Cancer Support Group, and we've raised over $10,000. But, much more importantly than that, on every single one of those mornings we've had one or more people who had recently been diagnosed with the disease come along and connect with the local support group. Those are people that have heard for the first time in our lives that they've got the big C, and they're incredibly scared. I've seen them come to those breakfasts and leave much calmer and much more settled about what was about to happen in their cancer journey. I've got to give a great shout-out to Richard Harry, a constituent of mine. He's a great bloke, and he's someone I connected with through this process.

My journey on this issue began in 2014. I attended a barbecue here that was hosted by the Prostate Cancer Foundation. It was there that I heard for the first time the startling facts about the diagnosis and the death rate, and it was plain to me that there was much more that needed to be done. It was equally plain to me that in that forum the Prostate Cancer Foundation was preaching to the converted and we needed to get that message out. That's why I began hosting, as I do every year, the Big Aussie Barbie out the front of my office in Mount Gambier.

Mr Deputy Speaker Boyce, I know you know—and I'm sure the member for New England, who has his own lived experience with this, understands—that one in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Fifty-four men will be diagnosed with it today, 54 men tomorrow and 54 men every single day thereafter. Three thousand five hundred men die from the disease each year. That's nine families every day who lose a loved one to this dreadful disease.

The Big Aussie Barbie aims to raise awareness and understanding of the disease and raise funds to support awareness programs. These are deaths that we can prevent with early intervention. It's only thanks to the generosity of the community of Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast and the volunteer efforts of the local prostate cancer group that I can bring this to reality. I want to extend my thanks to them, and I want to make a call out: if you're in or around Mount Gambier of 10 September at 11.30, come down and have a snag. If you can't, jump on my Facebook page and chuck us a donation.