Speech delivered on 9 June 2026 in advance of Men's Health Week in Melbourne VIC.

Men's Health Week commences 15 - 21 June 2026

Thank you for welcoming us here this morning, Will [McDonald], and it’s wonderful to see you here with your family, welcome Samantha and Alfie.

I also acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung of the Kulin Nation as traditional owners of the land we meet on.

I pay respect to elders, past and present, and all First Nations people here today.

Will, as your new Patron-in-Chief, I want you to know, and everybody here to know, just how grateful I am for the storytelling that you just shared with us, as Steve did.

For the emotion and the rawness and the honesty with which you shared your own journey with prostate cancer. 

I know it's the telling of stories that resonates with everybody who has suffered that illness, but also families and those who have walked alongside you all the way, and it is a gift.

I know it's part of the work you do to make sure this story is told loudly and boldly, but it's done with great courage and honesty. 
So, thank you for once again making that the starting point of today. 

And Steve, for you to acknowledge your own journey with prostate cancer, as you both acknowledged, it is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. 

It's so important that we continue to find ways, like you are, to educate and encourage men and those that support them to always be aware of the risks and symptoms of prostate cancer, to get diagnosed early and to seek the support that is now so well out there. 

Thanks also for acknowledging the fundraisers out there.

This organization is surrounded by a lot of love, by lot of people all around the country. 

It's nice to think of them paddling and walking in the spirit of raising money. 

Of course, I want to acknowledge:

• Adjunct Associate Professor Steve Callister AM, as national chairman of the Foundation.
• Will Austin, the CEO of Gazman, and all the executives here from very generous organisations, including Tyrepower, Mitre 10, the Charity Boys, Icon Cancer Centre, and so many others who surround this organisation with great generosity. 
• I want to acknowledge the nurses, the staff, and the volunteers that do so much profound work, and everyone here that has a connection to prostate cancer and survival research. 

Whether you're a survivor, a nurse, a carer, someone with lived experience, now as an advocate telling your story, it's a great honor for me to be here in your presence, and it is important that we're here together as we head into Men's Health Week. 

It's really great that I'm here in Melbourne to be able to do this to celebrate PCFA's extraordinary work that continues to contribute to men's health awareness, research and support.

And I know there'll be lots of events happening all around the country, including the Walk for Him Challenge, raising funds and awareness that will continue to transform lives, transform the level of care, and the research program. 

Today, I'm very proud to wear your ribbon as your Patron.

I wore, of course, a different shade of blue yesterday, a slightly darker blue. 

I also added a bit of red and black to my costume as I joined the FightMND community to celebrate the extraordinary, generous life of Neale Daniher, and to go down the Big Freeze slide at the MCG. 

I was wearing half Essendon and half Melbourne for the history of Neale, and I'm sorry for any Pies supporters in the room, but I was hoping that the Melbourne Football Club would win by six points, because Neale played at the number six for the club, and I thought a six point win would be fitting, having had the pies win by a point last year at the Big Freeze. They did slightly better in the exciting moments at the end of that game. And in case you do wonder, it is not as scary to go down that slide as people say – you just do it, and that's what Neale had told me to do.

He asked me when he was Australian of the Year, if I would go down the slide that year, and we talked about it again in November, when I saw Neale launching his marvelous book.

The thing this year was to go down the slide as the person who most inspires you, so I chose Neale as the person that I wanted to be dressed up as, because I think that he's inspired us to do so many things.

And I said to people who thought it might not be becoming of a Governor-General going down a slide into a bath, that if Neale asked me to do it, I would do as he'd say, and I'd play on.

I think about the dignity that people like Neale, men who have had prostate cancer, the dignity we see in people who are doing the hard work to make things better.

In Neale’s case, by the end he had no voice, he was totally at the behest of everybody else, and for a man for whom personal agency was at his core, the dignity he showed in not giving up and still continuing to do the work on MND. 

There was nothing I would have been able to do that would have been less dignified or more dignified than Neale himself. 

So it was important for me to make that public statement to support FightMND because. just like you, Neale's work was a legacy of hope, courage, and compassion, and I see that here with all of you. 

It's important. 

I'm here with you this morning as your Patron to celebrate the extraordinary strides you're taking to realise a future where no man dies of prostate cancer. 

You both mentioned children and grandchildren and their futures, and for them to be clear of this cancer, that is a noble, noble vision, and one that we can achieve. 

Congratulations on that $4 million grant to Peter Mac. 

I'm also patron of the National Cancer Research Foundation. 

I know that those big amounts given to researchers are the big heavy lifters that make a big difference. It will have profound consequences. 

I'm also a patron of the Nelune Foundation. 

It's been around almost as long as you, but the Nelune Foundation opened the Nelune Prostate Centre at St Vincent's late last year, and I was delighted, as Nelune's Patron, to celebrate the opening at St Vincent's. 

It's nice to know there's a connection to the founding of this organisation with St Vincent's, it's a lovely full circle moment for me to be involved in all of these organisations. 

Now, when I was sworn in as your Governor General, the 28th Governor General of the Commonwealth, in July of 2024, I said in my speech to the Parliament, to the people Australia, that I promise to put care, kindness, and respect at the centre of everything that I will do for all Australians. 

I describe it like this: care for each other, care for those that do the caring of others, care for our incredible continent and its environmental riches, that's care for country, care for civics and institutions and organisations that do the heavy lifting on behalf of us, and care for the way we discuss the really tough issues of our time, without anger or judgment or violence, always resisting the idea that not the person. I think we've been a country that has been able to debate things very, very well, and have differences of opinion, but always with respect to others. Seeing the country struggling with that a bit at the moment, I continue to talk about the need for respect and how to deal with issues.

Wherever I find care, kindness, and respect in organisations and communities, it's one of the great joys and privileges of my role to be able to share those stories wherever I go, and tell them to people who need to hear them.

So, this is one of the great privileges and advantages of a patronage relationship. 

PCFA's vision for survivorship, and everything we've heard already this morning, is an example of care, kindness, and respect. 
Steve put into a strategic outcomes–focused action. 

Your plan really matters. Built around an 11 point plan to achieve zero deaths from prostate cancer, you've established an evidence-based pathway to improving detection, treatment, accessibility, and support for men living with prostate cancer. 

It's a plan that holds hope for the 79 Australian men who are still diagnosed with prostate cancer every day, that'll happen today, and for their families, friends, and communities.

And through the Prostate Cancer Future Funds investment in Australia-based research, as we've heard already today, looking at prevention, detection, and treatment, there is hope too for the hundreds of thousands of men that we expect to be diagnosed with prostate cancer into the future.

Over your magnificent 30 years, PCFA has invested close to $80 million in research providing specialist nursing and counselling services, and you have built a network of support, compassion, and care for men and their families across the country, so that no one has had to face this challenge of prostate cancer alone.

That is care in action, supporting groundbreaking clinical research and treatments, contributing to public health education, offering social support and advice to men experiencing prostate cancer in an organisation that has an ongoing endeavor to improve outcomes for Australian men today and to get those zero deaths into our numbers for cancer in the future.

Of course, none of that would be possible without the generous contributions made by the corporate and philanthropic partners and donors, many of who are here today, and I always say a big thank you for your generosity. 

We stand alongside PCFA, because you know that saving lives and supporting men and families is a challenge we must face and overcome together as a community, a community of kindness and compassion. 

I want to thank you very much for inviting me to join other Governors-General as your, as your patron. It means a great deal that you did think that I would do that job well. 

It's a great, great privilege for me. 

I'm doing what I can to support your work, as you say. 

Will there is so much more we need to do to save the lives of the men we love, and I'm very proud to be part of this journey of love and compassion, which will continue to make a profound difference in the lives of men affected by prostate cancer and all your families.

So it's not just a great honor to be your Patron, it's also really lovely that it's on the 30th anniversary of your founding, and, as we enter Men's Health Week, I will do all I can to amplify your work, ensure that we catch this cancer as early as possible, and be with you in any way that you need me to be to ensure that no man is left behind. 

And today I'm looking forward very much to hearing the stories of the other men and families here as we enjoy some hospitality.
But today it's a great honor for me to be here. 

I'm delighted to be your Patron, and thank you for the extraordinary work. 

No man should be left behind. 

Thank you.