This Saturday I am taking part in a very special event: the grand opening of the refurbished Anglican Parish Hall on Thursday Island. It has been a long process but one that I am very proud to have had some involvement in. The Parish Hall, in the historic Quetta Memorial Precinct, has been a local…
The Coalition Government is an efficient government, and our actions since the 2013 election are speaking volumes louder than Labor’s legacy of empty media sound-grabs. We don’t just talk about more jobs, a more competitive and productive business sector, and lower household costs…the Coalition actually makes it happen. Today is another landmark occasion in the…
I rise to again speak on an issue which has been having far-reaching implications in my electorate and in northern Australia more broadly. A recent Cyclone Preparedness Index by RACQ showed that 8.4 per cent of residents had no home building or contents insurance at all. A further 11.7 per cent had insufficient cover to…
I rise today to highlight a very important campaign called The New Norm.This awareness campaign is designed to educate people on the lack of support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex LGBTI students in high schools. It is disturbing to hear that 82% of LGBTI students feel as though they are not supported…
I rise here today to express my very strong support for what Australia is doing to help combat the desperate circumstances that we are seeing with ISIL in Iraq and in Syria. This is certainly a humanitarian endeavour. It is certainly not an act of war. When we see scenes of genocide, families fleeing violence,…
I rise to present a petition from residents and businesspeople from the Kuranda-Speewah region highlighting the dire state of telecommunications in their region. This petition has 579 signatures and has been found to be in order by the Standing Committee on Petitions. The lead petitioner is my good friend Bob Madden from Speewah, who has…
On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia I present the committee’s final report entitled Pivot north-Inquiry into the development of Northern Australia, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report. Leave granted. Before I start, I have to say it is great to…
This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Red Cross serving our Australian community. The Red Cross have earned an impeccable reputation in carrying out humanitarian work in times of conflict and disaster and for their world-leading blood donor service. Just as important is their everyday work in communities helping the most vulnerable people who…
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this bill today. When you talk about the value of higher education, it is all too easy to just think in dollars and cents and the cost of an education. But it is vital that we look much broader than that and consider the…
Last Saturday, 30 August, I had the honour and the privilege of opening the redeveloped Jones Park. The redevelopment was achieved through a $3.5 million federal government grant and that was out of a total of $3.95 million for the total project. The funding enabled the construction of new fields, lighting, spectators’ stands, a new…