Federal Labor frontbencher Jason Clare is urging people to have any skin moles checked if they start changing colour, having recently suffered his own health scare.
Mr Clare took some time out from parliament after the May election after he found a mole on his leg that he thought was changing colour.
He had taken a photo of it a couple of years earlier and then noticed it had developed a black dot in the middle of it.
"I got a bit paranoid, sort of felt something was wrong, and so I went to see the doctor. It turned out it was a malignant melanoma," he told ABC television on Saturday.
"They cut it out. I've got sort of a mark on my leg that looks like a shark has bitten me. But I'm very, very lucky that I got it early."
He advised people to have moles checked out by a doctor if they start changing colour because melanomas kill more than 1500 Australians every year.
"It's a cancer that hits more Australians per capita than anywhere else in the world. So, please, look after yourself and check your skin," he said.
Australian Associated Press
