A-Z Index | Contact the Department | Search Advanced Search

Home > Ministers > The Hon Nicola Roxon MP - Minister for Health and Ageing > Media Hub > The Hon Nicola Roxon MP launches phase two of the Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign

View by date:

• February
  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December

• 2012
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004

Previous Ministers

PDF printable version of The Hon Nicola Roxon MP launches phase two of the Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign (PDF 17 KB)

6 January 2008

E & O E

(Acknowledgement of Hobson’s Bay Mayor, Bill Baarini, and the Chairman of the National Skin Cancer Committee and the Victorian Cancer Council Director of Education, Mr Craig Sinclair.)

Good afternoon and thank you, everyone, for coming. It’s a great pleasure to be launching such an important campaign in the early days of 2008 – right in the middle of a sweltering summer and at one of the Melbourne’s most beautiful beaches – Williamstown.

Thanks particularly to the surf life saving club for having us here.

We’re here today to launch a new phase of the multi-million dollar National Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign.

This campaign seeks to prevent skin cancer by strongly encouraging all Australians to adopt a lifetime of multiple sun protection behaviours early in life.

Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world – yet it is a clearly preventable disease.

We need to change our behaviours now if we are to reduce the alarming rate of skin cancer in our country. Prevention will help reduce suffering for individuals (and their families and carers) but also have a significant impact on the pressures in our health system and, more broadly, on productivity.

So there are many reasons to take action: personal, for the health system as a whole and for the country’s economic wellbeing.

This campaign is hard hitting – perhaps even surprising or shocking for some people – but it is very real – and tries to engage young people in particular with its key message “not to let time in the sun catch up with you”.

We need to act now and do so consistently as we know health promotion campaigns like this one can take time to make their mark.

For example, after many years of social marketing campaigns targeting smoking, we can now see their impact through reductions in smoking rates. The Australian and state and territory governments will continue to work together in order to further reduce smoking rates.

It is vital that we don’t give up on changing health attitudes and behaviour for the better. The skin protection message needs to be reinforced at a number of levels.

Unfortunately, the incidence of skin cancer is increasing all the time, with an ageing population. According to the Victorian Cancer Council, more than 40,000 Victorians are diagnosed with skin cancer annually and in 2005, 245 Victorians died from melanoma.

Nationally, about 375,000 people were diagnosed with skin cancer and nearly 10,000 with melanoma in 2003. About 1500 Australians die from skin cancer each year.

We desperately need people to keep hearing the message as skin cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. It is incumbent upon us all to try to reduce these numbers. And we know we can make an impact with targeted campaign messages.

Campaigns to reduce skin cancer go back to the early 1980s and I’m sure many of you (maybe not the nippers!) remember the “slip, slop, slap” message.

But precisely because the younger here today might not remember, it highlights the need to keep repeating these vital messages.

We do know that the campaign is having an impact and we are making headway. Research after the first phase of the Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign, which was launched in November 2006, found there were improvements in sun protection behaviours among the target audiences and an increase in unprompted awareness of sun protection methods.

But we need to build on this and that is why we are launching stage two today.

This campaign in particular, emphasises the risks to young people, a group highly vulnerable to skin cancer.

This is because the 13-24 year age group has been identified as the least likely to use adequate protection, and has the highest frequency of sunburn.

Melanoma is the most common cancer in the 15-24 year age group, with 213 new cases in 2003. In the same year, 764 males and 382 females died of melanoma in Australia. It is the tenth most common cause of cancer death in Australia.

But skin cancer is preventable – provided we make smart and healthy choices when exposing our skin to the sun and this campaign is designed to hammer home the message.

It will feature graphic television and print advertising that reinforces the message that young people in particular are vulnerable to life-threatening skin cancers and emphasises the effective ways that the risk of skin cancer can be reduced.

One of the primary focuses of our new Labor Government in the health arena is effective prevention.
Prevention of disease is pivotal to our policy. A growing number of Australians are developing chronic diseases such as skin cancer and suffering premature death - yet all caused by preventable lifestyle risk factors.

These diseases cost our health system and our economy an enormous amount including, of course, a personal cost for those affected.

I believe we need to be proactive and do whatever it takes to get the message out to all Australians in order to reduce the devastating numbers of skin cancer cases and the burden on Australian families.

To this end, it gives me great pleasure to officially launch this new skin cancer awareness campaign.

(ends)