Good evening and welcome to the 25th anniversary Trish MS Ball. If you ever wondered what the role of the patron is, it's like that of the body at an Irish wake. They need you for it to occur, but don't actually expect you to say much. Well, tonight I'm physically not present, and I am going to say a few words. For 25 years, I have been humbled and honored to be the co-patron of the Trish MS Research Foundation. In 1998, I was the federal member for Bradfield, and I received a letter from a woman called Carol Langford, and she described in some detail the challenges faced by her family, her daughter Trish, in living with and suffering from the impacts of multiple sclerosis. She was seeking the government to list beta interferon on the pharmaceutical benefit scheme. That in itself tells the story of how far we have come in a quarter of a century. I phoned Carol Langford and I asked if I could come and visit her, her husband Roy and Trish at home, and I did and was welcomed into a world in their modest West Pymble home. I was touched by their sorrow but inspired by their determination. Life left Trish Langford on the 16th of March 2002 in a small room in a Wunga nursing home. She was 30 years old. Seven years earlier, she'd been diagnosed with that primary progressive MS that would sequentially take her sporting prowess, her movements, and her speech, but never the radiant smile that lit every room that young woman ever entered. In 485 BC in Armageddon, the Greek dramatist Aeschylus wrote, 'In our sleep, a pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart. And in our despair, against our will falls wisdom through the awful grace of God.' In their despair, Roy and Carol Langford founded this remarkable research foundation and lent to it the name of their much-beloved daughter, Trish. And in those 25 years have made a remarkable difference not only to our understanding of the origins of this disease, but increasingly the treatments of it and perhaps the prevention of it. Drop by drop on our hearts, having raised almost $8 million, every cent of it going into translational and other forms of critically important research. Roy and Carol Langford and those who have supported them have made an extraordinary difference, but they have also made us a better people through the process they have pursued in raising and distributing these funds. In front of you is a purple booklet, science that gives us hope. Just have a look through it. And if you look, you don't need a medical education to see this. If you just look at the titles of the research projects, and these are just some of them that have been funded sequentially over those 25 years, you'll get a sense of how far we have come and how much closer we are to the solution to this crippling disease. We seldom ask ourselves, what is it that makes us Australians? As important as it is, it's not our constitution. It's not our flag. It's not the machinery of the democracy given us by the British. What makes us Australians are our values, our beliefs, the way we relate to one another and see our place in the world. We are defined by our people, by our triumphs and our failures, our heroes, those whom we choose to honor and our villains. We are defined by the adversities that we have faced and how we have endured them. And though it is a much abused term, Carol and her late much loved husband Roy are true heroes amongst us. And what they have done apart from raise all of this money to make a difference in the field of MS is to give us a greater belief in ourselves and a deeper understanding of what it means to be an Australian. And as I drove away from one of my visits to that nursing home to see Trish so many years ago, I realized something and that is that fear is infectious, but so too is courage and the hope that inspires it. One of the great paradoxes of our lives is that the most fragile yet powerful of human emotions is hope. We all have to believe in a better future, that tomorrow will be better than today. Next week will be better than this and next year will be better than this year again. And what most sustains hope is men and women who reach out in support of one another even when facing their own adversities and trials and tribulations. Over the years in coming to the Trish MS Ball, I've bought a lot of things. One year I with one of my friends at the other end I carried out a box with a lawn mower in it. And my mate said to me, 'What on earth you buying a lawn mower for?' I said, 'Yeah, I know. I've already got two.' Another year I bought a horse saddle. I wouldn't know one end of a horse from the other. But I've said to people, you don't count the cost, you count the benefit. And when Craig Marshall gets up later to do the auction and he sounds like a race caller, please to the extent that you possibly can count the benefit of whatever you choose to buy and contribute. And that benefit is all around you. Just look around the room. Disproportionately young people, young women living with multiple sclerosis and the challenges that it brings to them and their families every single day. We are fundraising for research for MS, but we're also doing something else. And I've learned something about Trish MS and what Carol and Roy have done over these 25 years. It's also about something else. It's about love. Love for friends, love between friends, love of family and love from family. It's about the power and inspiration of hope and turning that into practical outcomes in the field of research and treatment that improve the lives of those who have and will possibly contract multiple sclerosis, but in the process making us a stronger and a better people. Because look, in the end, the only thing that counts are the people whom you love and the people who love you. There are many things in this room tonight, but foremost amongst them perhaps is that to you, Carol, I cannot tell you how much you are loved, how much you are admired, and your determination and your courage and that of your late beloved husband Roy has inspired and continues to inspire so many of us. Have a wonderful evening and thank you. As we know, Carol says thank you, thank you, thank you. So to you, Carol, thank you.
