Page 3904 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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cats can be prohibitive for people on low incomes. $80 is still a bit steep, but it is absolutely essential that that happen, otherwise cats can reproduce over and over again.
We will all be very pleased that the RSPCA now has enough money, through the community appeal, to buy an animal ambulance. They have got more than they need to buy it. They have got enough money probably to start fitting it out. That is a really great thing.
The RSPCA is a very inclusive place; people are welcome there. It is a good place just to go and look at dogs if you have not got one.
Walk for juvenile diabetes
MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader of the Opposition) (6.11): I rise to thank the more than 3,000 Canberrans who on Sunday joined the walk to find a cure for juvenile diabetes. The walk to cure diabetes, as it is known, is an annual event. Around Australia something like 80,000 Australians walked. In Canberra it was more than 3,000. The money that they raised goes to Diabetes research. The organisation guarantees that 85 per cent of the funds raised will go directly into research, which is a pretty good effort.
The fight to find the cure is something that is quite real. The information supplied by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation hopes that within the next 5 years the cure will be found. And over the next 5 years around $3.3 billion will be spent on type 1 diabetes research around the world. It is important to read just a paragraph or two from their document Research to reality:
Just think …. eighty years ago, people with Type 1 diabetes died within three years of diagnosis. Now, thanks to ground-breaking research, we are able to sustain life with insulin and other medications. However insulin is not a cure for diabetes.
Globally JDRF have made a commitment to accelerate the pace of research by contributing $1.3 billion over five years to research. Finding a Cure for Diabetes is within the foreseeable future … we want to take the research out of the laboratory and make it a reality! But we need your help to do it!
It was pretty inspiring when, on a Sunday morning at 10 o’clock, the lawn outside the National Library was full of Canberrans. Whether they went as families, whether they went as individuals, whether they went as teams, corporate teams or departmental teams from the ACT and the federal governments—they were all there. It was great to see that, as a community, people were willing to cycle, scooter, skateboard, walk the dog, just go for a stroll, go for a bit of jog and put their Sunday mornings to a wonderful charity.
I walked. Bill Stefaniak walked with me. Gary Humphries was the official starter. Kate Lundy turned up and walked with us. There were lots of corporate teams. I want to thank those who really are doing a great job. There is a series of sponsors at either the national level or at the local level that have really got behind the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
At the national level, they are Australia Post, Boral, Ford, IBM, Spotless, Optus and Westpac. Most of them had teams there on Sunday. In the territory, the leaders were the
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