Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

There's a group of people in parliament today raising awareness about early-onset bowel cancer. I met with Mieke and Andrew, two young people who've each battled early-onset bowel cancer. Their message is: you are never too young. Bowel cancer is the deadliest cancer for Australians aged 25 to 54. Bowel cancer rates are two to three times higher among Australians born in the 1990s than those born in the 1950s. Mieke travelled to Canberra from Leura in my electorate. She told me she wants to see clinical practice guidelines for GPs regarding age bias, and that's because she had too many people telling her she was too young, and too many people are told, 'You're too young to have bowel cancer.'

The Bowel Cancer Australia pin that I'm wearing has a light green ribbon with an apple in the centre, which was very fitting for Andrew, whose family had an apple orchard in Bilpin in my electorate of Macquarie when he was growing up. Now, as a busy tradie with a young family, Andrew didn't raise his intermittent symptoms for some time until he told his wife, and, fortunately, he listened to her when she told him that he needed to see a doctor.

Bowel cancer is really treatable if caught early, so I thank Andrew and Mieke for their advocacy and I support them in the things they want to see—more research and more awareness about the fact that young people can get bowel cancer.