Sydney
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OMITTED]
When St Vincent's was established 155 years ago, cancer was almost always a death sentence.
The Sisters of Charity could bring comfort.
But not hope.
We just didn't have the medical knowledge.
Today, Australia leads the world in cancer care.
In the last two decades alone, the survival rate for many common cancers has increased by 30 per cent.
And we're doing better every day.
We have hope.
We have hope because of people like Rob Sutherland, Allan Spigelman and their colleagues around the world.
Outstanding researchers and clinicians who have made beating cancer their life's work.
When you come to work each morning, you come burdened with some very grim knowledge.
One hundred and twenty Australians will die of cancer today.
Another 300 will be diagnosed.
Those statistics demand a response from each of us as citizens and from the nation as a whole.
That is why since 2007, this Government has committed over $2.5 billion to infrastructure, medicines, screening and research to build a world-class cancer care system including $70 million to help build the facility we're standing in today.
In a federal budget stretching into the hundreds of billions,that may not seem much.
But in your hands, it is enough to create a place to work miracles.
To create a place of hope.
And friends, I want to say that is not the end of our ambitions for this site.
This corner of inner city Sydney may be small in area but it's very great in impact:
* St Vincent's public and private hospitals;
* The Garvan;
* Sacred Heart Hospice;
* The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute;
* The Kirby Institute;
* And the wonderful work of the Nelune Foundation; and
* I acknowledge Nelune Rajapakse's presence here today
Per square metre, perhaps the greatest concentration of medical care and research excellence in the nation.
Today I want to announce a new member of your family with the placement of the nation's third National Prostate Cancer Research Centre here in Darlinghurst.
It's a cause that's very close to Wayne Swan's heart and I'm to join him and Minister Plibersek in making this announcement today.
This third National Prostate Cancer Centre is a collaboration between St Vincent's Prostate Cancer Centre, St Vincent's & Mater Health and the Garvan Institute.
You all know what a prestigious win this is for these three organisations.
You know the international research interest it will attract.
There will be less suffering and grief because of the work that will be done in this new institute, just like the Kinghorn Centre.
There will be new knowledge and new discoveries.
Better collaboration between these institutes, and indeed your colleagues around the world.
Above all, there will be personalised, multi-disciplinary carefor patients because the journey of cancer can be so complex and demanding.
So this must be their centre.
Their place of comfort.
Their place of hope.
And because of what happens here, the things we can't cure and treat today, we will be able to cure and treat in the future.
It may not happen this year or next.
But you don't build places like the Kinghorn Centre for months or years, but for decades.
This is an investment in decades.
An investment in hope.
Supported by many generous donors, led by the Kinghorn family itself.
And staffed by the some of the most brilliant minds in our land.
So, proud of your work - and confident in what you will achieve; I declare the Kinghorn Cancer Centre officially open and wish it every success.