Television interview with Minister Butler and Sarah Abo, Today Show - 26 November 2024

SARAH ABO, HOST: Over 130,000 Australians live with type one diabetes and this morning 100 kids with the autoimmune condition are in Canberra fighting for $50 million to fund life changing research.
 
KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: It's a big one. Channel Nine's James Bracey and his daughter Tilly are among them, and they join us now, along with Health Minister Mark Butler. Good morning guys, really nice to see you this morning. Bracey, your gorgeous daughter Tilly, she was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was just three. Give us an idea on how that changes life for you?
 
JAMES BRACEY: Yes, morning, Karl, Sarah and all the gang back there in the studio. Great to be here today with Minister Butler and my little Tilly. Karl, as you know, you've got a godchild that was diagnosed at a young age as well and what it does is it changes not only the kid's life, but the whole family's life and theirs around it. Tilly now has a blood glucose monitor on her arm and an Omnipod on her leg. One is an insulin pump, the other one monitors, and they talk to each other to try and make sure that her body is doing the job that her pancreas doesn't anymore. We take it for granted. It's not until you've got a little person like this that's going through that carb counting for every meal that you realise how tough it is
 
ABO:  Bracey, how do you kind of modify your life around that. The diagnosis coming at three, I imagine there were a few changes you had to make for everyone?
 
BRACEY: Absolutely. You're more hands on, there's no doubt about that. Packing lunches, you're putting stickers on everything for the teachers at school to know just how many grams of carbs are in each item. As you guys know, taking a kid to a birthday party and there's just a table of goodies there, it's not that they can't eat it, it's just that you've got to counter that with the insulin, which, takes up a lot of head space for everyone, including my little mate here.
 
STEFANOVIC: I think the monitoring of that, as you know, Big Al, he is one of my best friends in my world and just going through all that was particularly hard. At three in the morning you can get, you know, that zapping on your phone. The technology is really kind of cool now. It makes it a little bit easier. Mark, you're looking at trying to give $50 million to fund research. How far away from that kind of decision are you making because it will make a huge difference in their lives?
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: That's right. I've been working with JDRF now for 15 years, and when the kids first came to the House about 15 years ago and I met with them, the devices that Tilly has on simply didn't exist. The advances that we've made in those 15 years are just extraordinary, but we can't rest on those laurels. We've got to continue to push the envelope, explore the frontiers of research, and find a cure for this thing so that type one becomes type none. As a very junior, much younger Assistant Minister in Health about 15 years ago, we announced the first money into JDRF’s Clinical Research Network and since then it's supported dozens of projects, hundreds of researchers and thousands of patients like Tilly and the cutting-edge clinical trials. We've got some additional money this year to keep it going. We're having a discussion about the longer term. But you can be confident, I've supported this program for 15 years, I'm not going to let it stop.
 
STEFANOVIC: That's good music to your ears. As well as those cheers in the background.
 
BRACEY: Team JDRF and the kids are belting the pollies here today. Matt Canavan, man, he had the game face on. David Pocock walked out like a man mountain. Now I thought, this is going to be carnage. Our type one’s out there they're doing a great job. We couldn't be happier with how this is going. A beautiful morning for it. A big day of campaigning in Parliament House with these guys.
 
STEFANOVIC: It's a really important thing and it makes such a huge difference for families. Bracey and Tilly, thank you for being on and Mark also for being generous, we appreciate your time. Thanks you.