ADJOURNMENT
Mr LLEW O'BRIEN (Wide Bay) (19:40): Prostate cancer is Australia's most common cancer, and September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, so you'd think this would be an ideal time for the government to announce something positive for men and the fight against prostate cancer. Well, if you thought that, you're very wrong. Instead, the Minister for Health and Ageing has announced that Commonwealth funding for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia's Prostate Cancer Specialist Nursing Service will end on 1 July 2027.
The specialist nurse workforce were not consulted before the government decided to end funding for their service. The men and families who depend on these services weren't consulted either. This is a terrible decision that will disadvantage men by removing a dedicated workforce that has been built up over 15 years, delivering specialist care to men who are affected by our nation's most commonly diagnosed cancer and to their families.
The Australian government currently funds 96 of these specialist nurses within a program of 131 specialist nursing practitioners that is run by the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. These specialist nurses work alongside urologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, general practitioners and multidisciplinary teams. They provide professional specialised support, from diagnosis through treatment, survivorship, advanced disease and end-of-life care.
The expertise of these specialist nurses cannot simply be transferred to another organisation or absorbed into a generic all-cancer-nursing model, as the government would have you believe. Specialist nurses are specialists in their field. A prostate cancer nurse develops expertise in treatment pathways, treatment toxicities, continence, sexual function, androgen deprivation therapy, advanced disease, survivorship and the psychological consequences of a prostate cancer diagnosis.
That knowledge takes years to build. If the Albanese Labor government allows these nurses to be lost, Australian men and their families will be all the worse off for it. The government owes us answers.
We need to know how this decision was reached, what evidence and modelling were relied upon, what assessments were made of the risk to the specialist prostate cancer nursing capability and why neither the workforce nor patients were consulted. Cancer care isn't improved by downgrading expertise. If the government allows this workforce to disappear, which is a real risk, reversing the decision in 12 months time will not bring them back.
For the men diagnosed with prostate cancer after 1 July 2027, the loss of this specialist, dedicated, professional workforce will be profound. The government should be thanking the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia for their extraordinary work in supporting the health and wellbeing of Australian men and working with them. Australia needs more cancer nurses, and we must invest in their future.
Expanding one model of cancer nursing should not come at the cost of destroying another, but that is what this government is doing. It's simple: lose the nurse, lose the expertise and lose the service. The government can't let that happen and can't be the cause of that happening.
It's not too late for the government to extend its funding of prostate cancer specialist nurses, and I call on the government to do so. But, unfortunately, this is yet another example of the Albanese government completely disregarding men and boys. They started by stripping dads supporting single income families of the opportunity to have supported paid parental leave, they're completely ignoring the male suicide crisis that is engulfing our nation, and now they are taking away the prostate cancer nurses.
Is there nothing this government will do to disadvantage men?