Australian Society for Medical Research

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:42): I would just like to endorse heartily the remarks of the member for Newland. The Pathway centre has been in the seat of Florey until recently, when the new boundaries come in. It has been my very great pleasure to help establish, even, the no-interest loan scheme by being part of the original committee. Their work is indeed spectacular.

Each year, MPs are invited to join the South Australian committee of the Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR) for what is always a very exciting and informative evening. After a COVID pause, it was good to catch up with so many wonderful people and, while all jobs are important, the work of the medical researchers is vital to answering so many questions many of our loved ones have about illness and disease.

The gala committee was convened by Dr Erandi Hewawasam, and I thank her and Hayley and all involved for organising such a smoothly run evening, MC'd by the inimitable Rob Morrison. The Australian Society for Medical Research SA committee convenor, Khalia Primer, played a special role after welcoming us by introducing, via Zoom, ASMR president, Dr Ryan Davis, from Sydney, I think. I know he is a researcher on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, but I think it was a Sydney evening. He was the 2021 ASMR medallist. Dr Davis introduced the evening's guest speaker, Associate Professor Dr Kelvin Kong, for his presentation, which informed us of his vital work on ears and hearing.

Associate Professor Kong is a Worimi man and his core mission is equity in health service provision, particularly ear, nose and throat services. Since COVID, he says, and I quote:

The way we have to prioritise and triage our work means we often are focussed on interventions that are life saving, such as head and neck cancer surgery, rather than life changing, such as treating paediatric middle ear disease which can transform lives by improving children's hearing.

From what I saw and have heard and learned since, I think Associate Professor Kong is making a huge impact on many lives, and I refer to the 2019 paper, Roadmap for Hearing Health, which supports all Australians who are deaf or hard of hearing to live well in the community. It is essential, as 3.6 million (one in six) Australians experience some form of hearing impairment. It can have a profound effect by excluding a person on many levels but particularly children in their learning, something that will impact them forever.

It is terrible to know that, while waiting lists here in South Australia for ear, nose and throat surgery have halved recently, they remain at 4½ years, or 54 months, as I was told. This is a crucial statistic that must be addressed, especially for our Indigenous children. One in three Aboriginal children experience chronic ear disease.

In some remote parts of Australia, up to 90 per cent of children experience some form of ear disease at any time. Aboriginal children are four times more likely to receive ear surgery and three times more likely to suffer permanent hearing loss, compared with non-Indigenous children. Three to five Australian children die each year from complications of middle ear disease; most often they are Indigenous children. Associate Professor Kong will do his best to see governments everywhere do their part in reducing these appalling statistics.

Each year, the ASMR presents finalists for the Ross Wishart Memorial Award. Later today, a winner will be announced at an event at the university. Two of the finalists this year are Dr Dexter Chan, who is working on the role of seminal fluid in the reproduction of human babies, along with Ella Green, who is working on female immunology. Their combined research should help those now relying solely on IVF treatments to manage a successful pregnancy. That is my interpretation of their work; I am sure they have a much more formal one.

Another finalist, Amita Gautam Ghadge is working on the risks of either fatty or dense breast tissue and the likelihood of breast cancer resulting from those pre-existing conditions. Kay Myo Min, also a finalist, is doing work on pancreatic cancer treatments. Pancreatic cancer is untreatable, unfortunately, and there is usually a one to five-year survival rate. She is looking for new targets to prevent the spread of proteins in that type of cancer. We can only wish her well in what she is doing.

Each one of those finalists only represents the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of medical research going on both here in South Australia and within Australia. For all their work, dedication and commitment we say thank you. We know how hard it is to maintain research in labs. They are all competing against each other for funding to maintain their research. We wish all of them every future success. To all the scientists coming up behind them, the medical researchers, we want them to know that, even though the funding may not be easily acquired through governments, we want them to keep working to make sure governments do stay on task, as it were, making sure funding is available for them.