Private Member’s Motion – Bruce Highway

I rise with a great deal of pleasure to support my colleague the member for Herbert’s motion today. I choked a little when I listened to the contribution from the member for Blair, who was trying to suggest that all of these problems go back to the Howard era. Back in that time the funding…

3 minute Constituency Statement – Mr Enemarki Zaro

I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable elder of the Torres Strait Islands, Mr Enemarki Matthew Zaro, who passed away on 7 February of this year, aged 96. Known as ‘Papa Zaro’, the proud Dauareb and Meriam elder was one of the few remaining members of the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, which…

Closing the Gap

I am certainly pleased to rise today to associate myself with the annual statement on Closing the Gap. Leichhardt is an electorate that has a very large Indigenous constituency, with the homelands of the Torres Strait, many Cape York communities and of course large Indigenous populations in its main towns. I have been the member…

Address in Reply

I rise this afternoon to take the opportunity of speaking on this address-in-reply in the breadth in which I am able to cover issues in my electorate. Over the past seven-odd years, I have been very much saddened by what I have seen as a decline in the Cairns region. This has very much been…

Adjournment – Growing up Queer Report

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (12:34):  I rise here today wearing a very, very different hat-not as the member for Leichhardt but as the chair of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for LGBTI Australians. On Friday a report was released which, to be frank, sent a pang of great sympathy and sadness through me. Titled Growing up queer,…

Adjournment – JUTE Theatre Company

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (21:00):  I rise tonight to highlight the great work of a local theatre company, the JUTE Theatre Company. JUTE has recently been successful in receiving another triennial grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. JUTE’s artistic director and CEO, Suellen Maunder, wrote to me to let me know that they really…

Environmental Legislation Amendment Bill 2013

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (11:54): I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on this bill today. There are two key elements of this bill, and I will only briefly mention the first. I disagree with the previous speaker in that it seeks to make a technical amendment to the EPBC Act to ensure that past decisions…