Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you today to launch this year’s national awareness week, DonateLife Week.

It is my honour to be here as the inaugural DonateLife Ambassador and I applaud the work being done by the Organ and Tissue Authority. 

Friends, this week we are asked to reflect on the importance of organ and tissue donation.

The very special capacity we each have to save - or heal - the lives of others.

This week we acknowledge all those donors and their families, whose decisions have given so many thousands of Australians the chance of a new life.

I am thrilled to launch this year’s DonateLife Week here at our wonderful National Portrait Gallery – an institution that offers insight and understanding of our history, legacy and Australian identity through the very personal medium of portraiture.

One year ago, I launched the DonateLife Book of Life – a unique collection of life-saving and life-changing stories about Australians whose lives have been touched by organ and tissue donation.

I invited Australians to embrace this book as it set out on a year-long journey across the nation.

On its travels it has prompted many conversations and has provided inspiration and hope to many.

That first collection of stories has grown ten-fold, and has returned to us enriched by hundreds of stories that Australians have generously contributed during the year.

From today the DonateLife Book of Life – now in its two volumes – will find its home in the National Library of Australia’s national collection.

As Australians continue to share their stories, new volumes will be created to add to the rich record.

Friends, these are the tales of the lives of ordinary Australians: brothers, sisters, parents, sons and daughters whose legacy lives on through their extraordinary decision to become a donor.

A generous gesture to another human being.

There are uplifting accounts of donor families who, in their darkest hour, found comfort.

A knowledge that in their own time of loss they offered life and hope to others.

There are recipients who, following a transplant, have been able to live their lives in ways they did not dream possible.

To realise they had a future they could not have previously imagined.

Philippa bravely recounts that, because she and her husband Scott had discussed their donor wishes, at a time of sudden loss and grief she found a sense of peace in upholding his wishes.

Brett’s story is one of thanks for the gift of a kidney and pancreas transplant that has transformed his restricted life on dialysis to a life of new opportunities: “All those families who have experienced this miracle would know the feelings of gratitude, sadness for the donor’s family and anticipation of what these wonderful doctors were about to perform…Thank you does not seem enough to say to the family”.

Mark honours wife Ali and devoted mother to their two small children, James and Stella. A brain haemorrhage took Ali, aged just 32, from her family.

“It has given our family some comfort to know that our Ali has been able to give something so special to four very sick Australians”.

Judy and her family share the heartbreak of the day they were told their son and brother Christopher, weeks away from his 15th birthday, would not survive a cerebral haemorrhage.

“We know that his gift has given five very lucky recipients and their families a new beginning.”

Friends, it takes courage and generosity to share these stories with strangers.

We sincerely thank each contributor to the Book of Life.

This week the message for all Australians is that we ask and know the donation wishes of our loved ones.

DonateLife Week highlights the vital importance of having a family conversation, however difficult or uncomfortable it may be.

I make a special plea to our young Australians - who are less likely to have discussed or made decisions about organ donation – to talk it about it, with your friends and with your family.

Katrina at just 17 was taken suddenly from her family in the prime of her life.

A month before her death, she had shared her decision to be a donor in a general conversation with her family.

Their message is: “Without having had the conversation we wouldn’t have known what to do. Talk to your friends and family and spread the word. Everyone needs to know the importance of organ and tissue donation.”

As more Australian families ask and know each other’s wishes, more lives can be, and are being, saved and healed through organ and tissue donation.

Results to date are encouraging, with 2011 achieving the highest number yet of donors and transplant recipients in Australia.

Today I pay tribute to the leadership and dedication of the DonateLife network in managing organ and tissue donation across the nation.

I acknowledge the skill and expertise of the transplant community in saving and improving more Australian lives.

I commend the many organisations, students and community groups around the nation who this week have joined with DonateLife to encourage more Australian families to ask and know each other’s wishes.

This week each one of us can have a conversation that could one day save or heal a life.

Thank you.