As the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Tibet, I am passionate about helping the Tibetan community seek the justice and freedom they so rightly deserve. The issue of access highlighted by the motion is one that is ongoing. A visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region by a delegation of Australian parliamentarians would certainly…
I rise tonight to reflect on and to honour my very good friend, tourism identity and business leader Charles Woodward. Charlie passed away on 18 May 2017 after a battle with cancer, and I certainly was profoundly saddened when I heard the news. He was such a lively character and had a generous spirit, and…
Last week I congratulated Cairns Hockey and the Aspire to be Deadly program for being nominated for a Queensland Reconciliation Award. Today I would like to add to this by announcing that Aspire has, for the second year in a row, been shortlisted for the prestigious Beyond Sport Global Award, in the category of Best…
Today I want to congratulate Cairns Hockey Association's Aspire to be Deadly program, which has been selected as a finalist in the 2017 Queensland Reconciliation Awards. It is a wonderful recognition of the positive outcomes this program is achieving for Indigenous young women and girls through sport, mentoring and education. Aspire to be Deadly has…
I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and the associated bills. In my view, it has been a very responsible budget and it builds on initiatives that the coalition government has built in the past and which it has certainly been very good at. Just from the perspective…
On Saturday night I attended a fantastic event hosted by the Rotary Club of Mossman to celebrate the centenary of the Rotary Foundation. At the event, held on the beautiful High Falls Farm, which is about 14 kilometres out of Mossman, six local people were awarded for their outstanding contributions to the Douglas community as…
This Friday night I am really looking forward to attending the celebrations of Sea Swift's 30th anniversary. Sea Swift transports the bulk of the freight goods from Cairns to Cape York and the furthest reaches of the Torres Strait Islands, and recently expanded into the Northern Territory. It offers mothershipping, project and charter services and…
For the last four years, the DANII Foundation has been knocking on politicians' doors to raise awareness of a technology that prevents type 1 diabetics dying in their sleep as a result of deadly low blood sugar, hypoglycaemia. In my electorate, Cairns mum Vicki McDonald has been a very strong advocate for making this lifesaving…
I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 25th annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum held in Natadola, Fiji, from 15 to 19 January 2017. I was accompanied on the delegation by the member for Paterson, who is across the chamber here, and senators Moore and Williams. The APPF is an…
I move: That this House: (1) notes that: (a) 24 March is World Tuberculosis Day, and marks the anniversary of German Nobel Laureate Dr Robert Koch's 1882 discovery of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis; (b) tuberculosis is contagious and airborne, ranking as the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious agent; (c) in…