July2012_DICKSON NEWS

From your Federal Member for Dickson
PETER DUTTON

Diabetes Awareness Week 8-14 July 2012

Diabetes is a medical condition which has reached epidemic proportions in Australia.  When people have Diabetes their body produces insufficient insulin or none at all.  Insulin is a hormone that converts glucose into energy.
In people with type 1 diabetes the pancreas stops making insulin.  This is a serious condition which can be fatal if untreated.  Insulin injections are required everyday by people with type 1 diabetes.  We don’t know exactly what causes type 1 diabetes but genetic causes are strongly suspected. Currently type 1 diabetes cannot be cured or prevented. People often confuse type 1 and 2 diabetes, but unlike type 2, type 1 diabetes is not related to diet.  It can strike particularly young children (otherwise perfectly healthy) and is a terrible disease.
Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes and is due to genetic and environmental factors.  Sixty Queenslanders are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes everyday.  There are approximately 300,000 Queenslanders living with diabetes.  It is likely that just as many Queenslanders have undiagnosed diabetes.  This makes awareness, prevention and treatment very important for our community.  Prevention is especially important as there is no cure for type 2 diabetes and it can take 15 years off a person’s life, if not properly managed. Complications from diabetes include heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and limb amputation.  This year National Diabetes Week runs from 8 – 14 July and the theme is ‘Pre-diabetes’.  
‘The Forgotten People’ Speech – 70th Anniversary
On the 22 May 1940, former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies delivered ‘The Forgotten People’ speech, as part of a series of 37 speeches broadcast on radio.  Menzies’ ideas resonated with our great nation and ultimately help to shape post war Australia.  Reading Menzies’ works tells us much has changed since that time but the essence of many issues remains the same.
Prior to the Global Financial Crisis, listening to the rhetoric from some politicians, you could have been forgiven for thinking that free market principles had triumphed against Marxist style central planning.  In recent years those tensions are again very evident. 
Menzies made a clarion call to shun the divisiveness of a false class war.  This is a warning worth heeding.  In recent times some have tried to promote a false ‘billionaires vs battlers’ approach to the resources industry.  By contrast I share Tony Abbott’s view that, “We depend upon those ore carriers travelling North as surely as our forebears rode on the sheep’s back.”
I recommend taking the time to read the works of our political and community leaders from past eras.  Especially to young people and students, who may be reading and learning about these individuals for the first time.  For information on Menzies visit www.menziesvirtualmuseum.org.au .
I will continue to work for an even better Dickson, focused on the future and informed by our nation’s great past.