Australia's Biggest Morning Tea Launch
Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, launches Australia's Biggest Morning Tea at Parliament House.
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Previous Ministers27 May 2004
Australia's Biggest Morning Tea Launch
(Indistinct) parliamentary colleagues and a special welcome to my opposite number, Julia Gillard, the Shadow Minister for Health. I'm really pleased to welcome you all to this parliamentary version of Australia's Biggest Morning Tea. And in meeting in this way today, we are in solidarity with thirty-six thousand other morning tea parties that are happening around Australia today attended by hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens.
This is a very Australian thing to do. We Australians love to get together over a cup of tea but we don't today want it to be just chatter. We don't want it today to be an aimless gathering in any way. We want it to be a gathering for a cause and there are few better causes than the fight against cancer which remains our second biggest killer. Despite all the improvements that have been made in treatment, despite all the improvements which have been made in screening, despite the fact that cancer death rates have fallen by about two per cent a year over the last decade, it is still our second biggest killer. And there is still so much more to be done in terms of research, in terms of awareness, in terms of treatment.
One in three men and one in four women will suffer cancer before the age of seventy-five so it touches everyone. If not us, our parents, our spouses, our children, our friends and that's why coming together today in the cause of cancer research, in the cause of raising cancer awareness, is so important.
Of course, government does a great deal to try to fight cancer. The federal government spends about a hundred and forty million dollars a year in conjunction with the state to improve and boost cancer screening programs. The federal government spends nearly (indistinct) million dollars a year on cancer research. In the recent budget there was eight million dollars for the bowel cancer screening pilot.
But the thing about Australians is that we don't leave everything to government. We do our bit too, and this is a marvellous way of getting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians all around our country to do their bit for cancer.
I want to congratulate the Cancer Council on their work in organising these morning teas for the last eleven years. I understand, Judith, that some thirty million dollars has been raised through these morning teas up till now. I understand the target this year is seven million dollars. The Prime Minister kicked it off with a one hundred thousand dollar donation from the federal government at an early morning tea last Friday in Campbelltown.
We, members of parliament - I'm sure - are all about to make modest but significant donations in the tins that are around the room. I hope that none of us have done what I did and walked out of the office without a wallet.
[Laughter]
Abbott:
And if we have to borrow money from anyone, I hope that we pay it back but certainly we should do our bit today. We shouldn't leave it all to the PM and to the government. Let's dig in and let's help out. It's a very Australian thing to do and let's do it this morning.