Reception to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Asthma Foundation Queensland and Present the 2015 Charles Mitchell PhD Scholarships

I acknowledge the Minister for Health, the Asthma Foundation Queensland Chair, CEO, staff and supporters, ladies and gentlemen. Kaye and I are delighted to be able to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this great Queensland organisation by hosting tonight’s special celebration and presentation ceremony.

It is very pleasing that my first formal duty as Patron of the Foundation in Queensland is to present the inaugural Charles Mitchell PhD scholarships to Liisa Murray and Johanna Schagen.  This exceptional support will enable these two young University of Queensland researchers to continue the fine tradition of Australian research into asthma.

In naming these awards, the Foundation has made the wonderful decision to honour the legacy of Associate Professor Charles Mitchell. His service to the Foundation as a member of the board for so many decades – the last five of those years as Chairman – is truly exceptional. On behalf of the many Queenslanders who live, daily, with the challenge of asthma, I warmly congratulate and thank him for that contribution.

It is particularly fitting to be able to recognise that contribution through scholarships because this elder statesman of respiratory medicine has always been a passionate campaigner for research.

While on the Board, he also advocated strongly for the Foundation to take a strategic approach in its activities, with a focus on results. For this reason, too, I suspect he is delighted with the decision to create these scholarships – it’s difficult to imagine a more targeted way of improving the treatment of asthma and, long-term, reducing the devastating impact that it has on so many Australian lives.

I congratulate the winners on their awards, and applaud the Asthma Foundation on reaching this very significant milestone. That it is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation is in no small measure due to its fine set of values: pioneering, tenacious, progressive, transforming, reflective, and liberating.

These are strong and enduring values which will continue to serve the organisation well for at least the next five decades.

I know that the Foundation has promoted a broadly based approach to dealing with asthma. Ventolin and other medications are critical, but as we know from our own family experience, what I might call a behavioural capacity to deal with these emergencies – a great ask of youngsters, is also critical. I believe the Foundation has encouraged a lateral approach over the years.

In a different context, Kaye and I witnessed this heart-warmingly today in Cherbourg.

At the Arethusa College Barambah Creek Campus, young Aboriginal boys – many with problems, are encouraged to learn in the classroom in the morning, knowing they ride the bulls at the rodeo in the afternoon. The rodeo was brought forward today because Kaye and I needed to be back for the reception tonight. The boys did not mind that! And with great reluctance, I accepted the officially tendered advice that I should not pretend to be a rodeo performer.

I mention this rather marginally relevant information, to remind us all of the wide array of challenges facing all of us in this great community of ours, challenges met through an array of innovative responses. This Foundation we salute tonight has always been a leader.  

Now the organisation is not of course an abstraction. It is a living aggregation of wonderfully committed people.

And so this evening, I congratulate and thank all who have ensured the effective discharge of the Foundation’s mission over the last half century; and I express, with gratitude, my hope and confidence that that support will continue unabated!