Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand tonight to pay tribute to Diabetes Tasmania and in particular to highlight the wonderful success of the Tasmanian Pollie Pedal for 2008. The Pollie Pedal in Tasmania has been held since 2006, so this is our third Pollie Pedal. It is organised by Diabetes Tasmania in collaboration with my office. The inaugural Tassie Pollie Pedal was held in March 2006. In the last two years we have raised over $86,000 to support diabetes education and community awareness and activities in Tasmania and we have had very good success. This year has been not only successful but the best ever. This year we are pleased to report that we raised over $45,000 for community awareness of and education on diabetes for the people of Tasmania.

In past Pollie Pedals in Tasmania we have enjoyed the best that Tasmania has to offer. We have had detours to wineries, cheese factories, chocolate factories and special places of interest not only to the riders but to the general community. We have had community events with schools, special service organisations and community groups. This year was no different. The aim of Pollie Pedal is to provide funds for Diabetes Tasmania to carry out its education and community health promotion activities to raise community awareness, to demonstrate that physical activity is important and can be fun and to basically maximise the fun for all the participants.

In Tasmania, sadly, we have one of the highest rates of diabetes in Australia. Diabetes is a chronic disease. It is serious, it is getting worse not better and it leads to potentially lethal complications. In Tasmania, it affects approximately 7.8 per cent of the adult population above the age of 25. This is the highest rate of any state or territory in the country. I will point out that the north-west coast of Tasmania has the highest rate of any part of Tasmania. It is a public health risk and not only does it present significant emotional, health and social concerns but it is an economic cost to the Tasmanian and, indeed, the Australian community. On average, seven people living in Tasmania are developing diabetes each day and 15 Tasmanians per day are progressing from being overweight to obese. Certainly the obesity epidemic is getting worse not better and Australia remains one of the four fattest nations on earth. We need to do something about it and Tasmania’s Pollie Pedal in 2008 certainly assisted in that regard.

I want to pay tribute to our sponsors, who have been terrific—in particular our platinum sponsor, Medtronic. I want to thank Jamie Stanistreet, Deb Davis and Marco Fragiacomo for their support. Medtronic specifically has been tremendous. I want to thank Medibank Private and Novartis, who supported us as gold sponsors. Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline have provided wonderful support, and I likewise thank Novo Nordisk and the MAIB in Tasmania for their support.

A whole range of politicians and riders were involved in the Pollie Pedal this year. There were 20 to 30 people each day—on average, about 25. Amongst the politicians there was the Hon. Tony Abbott, who flew down to be with us and to kick it off on Friday, 29 February. Tony, of course, leads the national Pollie Pedal, which is a 10-day ride in or out of Sydney. This year it is going from Melbourne to Sydney in about a month or so. Tony has demonstrated great leadership in that regard and this year will mark the 11th Pollie Pedal at the national level. Thank you, Tony Abbott, for being with us in Tasmania.

My thanks also go to Greg Hall MLC, who, like me, has ridden every kilometre of the Tassie Pollie Pedal to date. To Ivan Dean MLC: thank you for your support and riding. Jim Wilkinson MLC was an apology this year. I want to recognise Bertrand Cadart, the Mayor of the Glamorgan Spring Bay Council, for providing support on his motorcycle. He was our riding marshal, as it were, at the front of the pack or at the back of the peloton. Thanks to Mayor Douglas Burt, the Mayor of Georgetown. And special thanks to Mayor Mark Shelton, the Mayor of the Meander Valley Council, and to Helen Burnet, an alderman of the Hobart City Council who supported the Pollie Pedal. A special acknowledgement to Simon Cocker of Unions Tasmania. Yes, we differ on a whole range of issues, but we support and are united in our efforts to combat the diabetes epidemic in Tassie and further afield. It was good to ride with Simon and have his support.

The other riders included Marco Fragiacomo and Lyn Nash, from Medtronic; Martin Cross, who has been a good supporter over a number of years, and John Engel, from Novartis; Tim Edgecombe, Jeremy Norton, Patrick Chanin and Kirsten Gorton, from Medibank Private; and Kellie Howe and Therese Ryan, from Eli Lilly. Mark Tate, from GSK, is a wonderful support for the team; likewise, Grant Young, from MAIB, who has consistently supported the cyclists in a whole range of areas during the tour. Paul Lindsay, from Sanofi-Aventis, worked very hard on the Pollie Pedal and was a great support for all of us and a good friend. It was also great that Andrea Schiwy, a board member of Diabetes Tasmania, was with us again this year, and also Helena Griggs, who is a diabetes educator from Diabetes Tasmania. The other interested riders were Ken MacRitchie, who is a long-time supporter of the Pollie Pedal, and Wayne Griggs, Tom Kleyn and Sonia Free.

A special tribute goes to Diabetes Tasmania for their organisation and leadership. I want to specifically thank Caroline Wells, who is the CEO of Diabetes Tasmania and is providing excellent leadership. She was supported this year, as in past years, by Leanne Clark, who was a real trooper. Thanks to Jonathan Jones, our photographer and all-round supporter, and of course Liz Makin from Medibank Private. Thanks also to my own office staff—we do this in cooperation with Diabetes Tasmania. I thank Barry Prismall, Caroline Donaghy, Mary Dean and Clare Stewart for their wonderful support for the Pollie Pedal.

We had a three-day journey, over the Friday and then the weekend. We started at the Evandale Primary School. Grant Maynard, the chaplain there, gave us a prayer of safety and a blessing, and I think it worked because we did not have any injuries of significance over those three days. He is a penny-farthing enthusiast and he led the Pollie Pedallers, with Hans, on that first day at the school, with the support of Marilyn Murray and the wonderful students. We proceeded to the Ravenswood Neighbourhood House Community Centre—they gave a wonderful morning tea—then along to the Lilydale Primary School and through to Scottsdale, where we were met by the Lions Club and Tanya Rattray-Wagner MLC, the local legislative councillor, who was so supportive with that local community group. We had a wonderful barbecue there. We were exhausted—there are a lot of hills between Launceston and Scottsdale. Day one was particularly tough and gruelling, so congratulations to all cyclists who got there.

On the next day we travelled from Scottsdale to Bridport and Barnboogle, which is an excellent golf course. I can commend it to all golfers all around Australia. It is outstanding. Then it was on to Pipers Brook—and thank you to Paul de Mohr for the wonderful lunch stop that we had on that occasion, and also to Gail, who was so vibrant and welcoming. Then it was on through George Town to the pilot station at Low Head that evening. We returned, on the final day, to Launceston via the Batman Bridge and Beaconsfield—where we visited the Beaconsfield Mine Museum, and Mayor Barry Easther gave us wonderful support with Kerry Finch MLC—and then Seahorse World and the Velo winery. At our final destination, Mayor Albert Van Zetten was there to welcome us and to say thank you, on behalf of the City of Launceston, for what we were doing.

All in all, it was an excellent Pollie Pedal 2008. I thank all those who participated and all those who enjoyed it. In particular, I thank the community for the support we received along the way from families, men, women and kids, who gave us a cheer and gave us some funds to support the work of Diabetes Tasmania.