CONDOLENCES

Ms TEESDALE (Bass) (11:06): Today I rise to honour Professor Richard Scolyer ATO, a remarkable Australian and a deeply loved son of Tasmania. I didn't have the privilege of knowing Richard personally, but seeing how all of those who were able to interact with him throughout his life have reacted to his passing tells me that he was a truly great man. Many Australians knew Richard as one of the world's leading melanoma researchers.

They knew him as the 2024 Joint Australian of the Year. They knew him as a cancer specialist who, when faced with his own devastating diagnosis, kept working, kept sharing and kept trying to help others. But before all of that, Richard was one of ours.

He was born in Launceston, he grew up in Riverside, he attended Riverside High School and went on to study medicine at the University of Tasmania. Even as his work took him to Sydney, to hospitals, laboratories and research institutions across the world, he remained proudly connected to our beautiful state, proudly connected to home. That connection was seen clearly at Bridgnorth Football Club, a club tied to his family for generations.

Richard was their no. 1 ticket holder. He loved that club. He loved the community and the community loved him back.

Because, for all of his brilliance, what so many people remember about Richard is not only what he achieved but how he carried himself—curious, brave, generous and humble. We should all aim for such lofty heights as these. A person can change the world but still belong to a place, a school, a club, a family and to the people who knew them first.

And Richard did change the world. Through his work with Professor Georgina Long and Melanoma Institute Australia, he helped to transform melanoma treatment. Advanced melanoma, once so often a death sentence, particularly in Tasmania, where we have the highest rates across the country, became survivable for many more people because of the work and the science that he helped to lead.

Then in 2023, in the face of being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable brain cancer, Richard did something extraordinary that I don't think many people could. He became a patient. He did not stop being a scientist.

He became the world's first brain cancer patient to have pre-surgery combination immunotherapy, an experimental treatment based on the breakthroughs that he had helped to pioneer in melanoma. He shared that journey with honesty and generosity, not because that made it easier and not because it would take away the fear but because he knew that what he learnt from his treatment might help the next patient, the next family, hopefully even the next breakthrough.

That is courage and that is service and that is love in action. Our thoughts, all of Tasmania's thoughts, are with Richard's wife, Dr Katie Nicholl; his children Emily, Mathew and Lucy, who were here yesterday in parliament; his parents Jenny and Maurice; his brother, Mark; his colleagues and everyone in northern Tasmania who had the privilege to know him not as just a national figure but simply as Richard.

We are really proud that one of our own has managed to change the world, and may we honour him by continuing to back science, support medical research, care for each other and, as Richard would say, always giving it a crack. I commend this motion to the House.