Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. Nearly 29,000 Australian men are diagnosed with it every year. Nearly 4,000 die from it.

Last week I met with Peter from Kooyong. He was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer two years ago. For men like Peter, a specialist nurse provides continuity, through diagnosis, successive treatments and, sometimes, end-of-life care.

On 31 August, the government announced that, from July 2027, Commonwealth funded prostate-cancer nurses would be moved into the McGrath Foundation's all-cancer nursing service. But the nurses and patients most affected by this were not consulted. I've heard from constituents and advocates in Kooyong who are deeply concerned about this announcement—men like Philip Endersbee from Kew. Through the Male Bag Foundation, Philip and his colleagues have raised more than $2 million for biopsy equipment for regional hospitals.

I wrote to the health minister about this issue in September, and he confirmed that $46.5 million in funding has been allotted over five years for the existing 60.5 full-time-equivalent positions. He stated that the foundation's telehealth nursing service will still be funded. But that funding currently ends in June 2027. Existing prostate cancer nurses will have the 'opportunity' to transition, according to the minister. But that is no guarantee.

As a doctor, I know best-practice care depends on more than a job title. It depends on training, on supervision, on standards and on expert colleagues. The minister says that dedicated support for men with prostate cancer will be maintained, but it's not clear at this point whether these positions will be ring-fenced or whether they're to be absorbed into a general cancer case load. So I ask the minister: Who's going to provide the disease-specific clinical leadership and mentoring that the Prostate Cancer Foundation has built over 15 years, much of it funded by the community? And how are we going to know whether patients are better off or worse off? The government says that it's going to monitor performance through its McGrath Foundation contract. I ask the government: will you make those results public? Coordinated integrated cancer care is a very worthy goal, but that does not require every service to be delivered by the same organisation, and it must not come at the expense of a proven and highly trained specialised workforce. I urge the minister to guarantee that prostate cancer nursing positions remain dedicated to prostate cancer, to publish clear performance measures for the new model and to secure the Prostate Cancer Foundation's telehealth nursing service beyond June 2027.