Thank you to Emily for being our MC today. Thank you to Zeph, Gisele and Ethan who came up and spoke to us as well. Thank you for showing your courage.
We’re on the land to the Ngunawal and Ngambri people. I want to pay my respects to the Elders past and present and to all First Nations peoples who are here today.
To Sydney, we’re delighted you’ve taken the decision to move ‘down under’ and fill the very big shoes of Mike Wilson OAM, who has just been a terrific advocate for this community for 20 years. Mike, thank you, and we wish all the best.
We are so delighted to have the Blue Army back. It’s been way too long: 2018 seems a long, long time ago. Last time you were here, a Prime Minister lost his job. We’re hoping that doesn’t happen – at least half of us are hoping – that doesn’t happen again today!
But I can’t state how much you lift the spirit in this building when you come and talk to us and reconnect with the local MPs, that we know you’re meeting with so regularly – mums, dads and kids as well.
It really is just a terrific event.
And I’ve known the young people from my community now for many years. When I first met Shanna, she was a teenager. She’s now an adult, engaged, bought a house, doing graphic design for JDRF, and she’s been supplanted by Theo, who is living his best life. He managed to whoop the Parliamentarians this morning, who – I’ve got to say – play pretty dirty, for the time I was watching them. And he served himself for lunch made up of meat and four lemon meringue pies – living his best life.
He’s been lobbying me for years, since he was just little. I know every MP across the political spectrum is experiencing the same. Sussan Ley is here as the Deputy Liberal Leader. Anne Ruston will be addressing you on behalf of the Opposition as well.
James Bracey and Tilly and I were on The Today Show this morning. Tilly told me what she had. She’s got a CGM machine on her arm. She’s got an Omnipod DASH that looks after her insulin levels. It just reminded me, when I came to my first Kids in the House in 2008 and met Shanna, none of that existed. It was just a dream, really, that parents and teachers would be able to rely upon that sort of technology to monitor and to keep insulin levels nice and stable. And it has transformed the lives of this community, I know.
And together, whether it’s a Liberal government or a Labor government, we have done everything in this building that we can to support your community.
In 2022, after fierce lobbying from Mike and the Blue Army, we extended support for CGM machines to all Australians with Type 1. We’ve provided subsidy programs for the Omnipod DASH. We were able to put Fiasp back on the PBS. I know the level of stress and anxiety that caused for families.
We’ve come a really long way in 15 years. The thing I love about this community is you never rest on your laurels. It’s never enough. There’s always more that you can do, always more money you can extract in this building to change the lives of 135,000 Australians for a disease condition growing in this community and so many others across the world.
And none of us in this room, across the political spectrum, is happy to rest on the very significant laurels that we’ve seen over the last 15 years. I know that you’ve been here, lobbying me, lobbying the Prime Minister, lobbying Anne Ruston, Peter Dutton, and all the rest across the political spectrum for this terrific Clinical Research Network that JDRF has built here in Australia.
When I was much younger, slimmer, Assistant Minister for Health back in 2010, with much less grey hair, I was honoured to announce the first government investment in the Clinical Research Network in 2010, when Kevin Rudd was the Prime Minister.
And to see what you have built: a network that has supported dozens of research projects, hundreds of researchers, supported thousands of JDRF patients into cutting edge clinical trials.
It’s simply a program that must be continued. I know that we’ve been here fiercely lobbying for that to be the case.
In the Budget this year, we found some money to extend it for a year, while we worked with the Network on longer term arrangements.
Today, I’m delighted to announce we will be supporting the next phase of the search for a cure for Type 1, so that type one becomes type none, through not a $50 million investment, but a $50.1 million investment.
This five-year investment will accelerate the research for prevention, treatment and cure, by extending and enhancing the research that this network has pioneered, which has absolutely put Australia on the global map as a leader for research here.
The terrific thing about every single investment in the work of JDRF is it’s been bipartisan. It’s been one of the most terrific things that brings this House together. For all the disagreements and disputes we have, testing each other’s values in the national interest, this is something we’ve been able to do on a cross-partisan basis.
I’m confident, without pre-empting what the Opposition might do over time, that this will also be a bipartisan commitment, because I know that the former government invested in this network, which was a terrific thing as well.
So, thank you all for coming along. It is just so good to have you back.
We want to see you back next year and the year after as well.
I know it’s a long way and it’s a big investment of time and energy and money for mums and dads to uproot their lives for a day or two to come here.
But I can’t tell you how valuable it is. We get lots of briefing papers to read as MPs. Nothing is a substitute for being looked in the eye by a member of our community and asked to change their lives.
And you’ve done that for years and years, and it’s reaped an enormous dividend for your community and for the country.
Thank you very much and all the best.
