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It's my pleasure to invite the Prime Minister, the honourable Tony Abbott, to speak
on behalf of the Commonwealth Government,
to receive the symbolic keys, and to formally open the building.
Prime Minister.
Prime Minister, to commemorate the Commonwealth's wonder contribution to this building and to our other building
and to also recognise you're role in opening this building, I'm very pleased
to hand you
this symbolic key to the Harry Perkins Institute building.
Well ladies and gentlemen it is a real honor to be here today.
It's an honor to be in the presence of
the Governor, the Deputy Premier, the Lord Mayor
ministers Dutton, Cormann, so many people who have
made a magnificent contribution to this building.
when I became
the Health Minister back in 2003
it was not a position that I'd ever coveted,
ever craved, ever asked for. But it was in
some ways the most satisfying four years of my public life
because the great thing about the health sector
is that everyone is in it for the right reasons.
They're not there for money, they're not there
for preference, for advancement.
They are there because they want to work
for the betterment of mankind... and you do
work for the betterment of mankind, particularly those who are involved
in health and medical research. Almost nothing
changes our world like health
and medical research. If we think back to our
great-grandparents' times, they were lucky to live
to be fifty or sixty. Today
we can expect to live to be eighty or ninety
and that change, that extraordinary
opening of the world to all of this
has been a function of advances
in heath treatment. It's been due
in large measure to the work of health and medical researchers
such as the people whose work we honour today,
the people who will be housed in this magnificent building
behind us. And can I say that we here in Australia
are very very good at health and medical
research. Howard Florey the inventor of penicillin
has probably been the Australian who had most impact
on the wider world. We've had a
cavalcade, particularly in recent times,
of internationally recognised health and medical
researchers. Eight of Australia's 15
Nobel Prize winners have been in health and medical
research and obviously I acknowledge and recognise and honour
Professor Barry Marshall here with us today from the University of Western
Australia.
It's very important to this government
as it's been very important to all governments
that we continue to do what we can in health
and medical research. I can assure everyone here
today that having been a
Health Minister for medical research
I am determined to be a Prime Minister
for medical research in the months and years to
come. It's a thrill to think
that the meeting that I had with
Professor Peter Klinken
all those years ago has borne fruit in this way.
I'm honoured, Peter, to
to be here with you today on your last day as
director this Institute. I'm please to be with Peter Leedman on his first day
as director of this research institute.
But most of all I want to acknowledge everyone who has made today
possible. The professors of course
the researchers of course but all the unsung people
that made it possible - the builders, the tradesman, the craftsman...
everyone connected with Doric Constructions led by
Harry Xydas. They've all done such a magnificent job
It's nice to have the Hallelujah Chorus over there.
Well may they do their bit to commemorate
today because I am confident that our world
our country, our state, will be so much better
in the years and decades and centuries to come, because the work that will be
done
in this building behind us.
Thank you Prime Minister. We'd now ask you to unveil the plaque to commemorate the
official opening on the Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research Building.