Thank you, Madam Speaker. There are many things to look forward to about the end of winter and the promise of spring: the riot of golden wattle; longer, warmer days; the flowering of the territory’s many ornamental plum trees; the countdown to summer holidays. And then there is the arrival of ACT Government rates notices. I think very few completely honest people, Madam Speaker, will say they eagerly look forward to opening their letterbox to any bill, but the sense of dread

Thank you, Madam Speaker. One of my favourite things to do is to give people gifts. On some occasions, the gift is one that I carefully think about and pick out in order to bring a smile to a loved one’s face. On other occasions, the opportunity to give a gift comes out of the blue, like the day I walked out of the shops with a chocolate bar and felt impressed to offer it to a father in the car park who was clearly having a very difficult day with his kids. Last month I chose

After Multicultural Affairs Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith grossly wronged Canberra’s ethnic communities, the government’s repositioning of its alcohol policy at the Multicultural Festival is shamefully overdue. As the Canberra Liberals stated all along, the Labor government’s policy to ban alcohol sales by ethnic stallholders was plain wrong and defied the spirit of the Multicultural Festival. Canberrans were rightly disappointed to see their own Multicultural Affairs Ministe

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise today to respond to a disturbing speech that was given in the Federal Parliament yesterday by Senator Anning. The senator spoke fondly of a time in Australia’s past when our immigration program, quote, ‘actively discriminated in favour of Europeans’. To point out the obvious, Madam Speaker, neither I nor my Liberal colleague Ms Lee would be here now under such a program. Many of the very best Australians that I know likewise wouldn’t be here u

I seek leave to make a brief statement in relation to the petition that I have presented. *** Madam Speaker, I have presented a petition signed by 207 Canberra residents calling on this Assembly to urge the ACT Government to provide a recycling bin, or even better, recycling bins at the Charnwood Group Centre. There are currently nine public rubbish bins provided to users of this shopping centre, yet there are currently no public recycling options at the Charnwood shops. This

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am delighted that Ms Lee has brought this matter of public importance before the Assembly today. I speak from the perspective of a mother of five children, all five of whom are currently enrolled in three of Canberra’s public schools, including a primary school, a high school, and a college. As you can guess, the idea that all parents should have an informed choice in determining their children’s education is important to my husband and me. The who

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak briefly in support of the Senior Practitioner Bill. This proposed legislation is broad in scope and defines providers as either a person or other entity who offers educational services, disability services or the care and protection of children. This means that it will involve children and young people in out-of-home care. On this point, I honour the good families in Canberra who volunteer to serve as foster carers and kinship carers. This

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to move this motion today and to address this very important topic. In doing so, I speak on behalf of tens of thousands of culturally and linguistically diverse Canberrans. As I have pointed out a number of times in this place, Canberra is a wonderfully multicultural city. Thirty-two per cent of us were born overseas, according to the 2016 census, and more than half of us have a least one parent who was born overseas. And these numbers appear to be

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The twenty-first of July is the winter solstice – the shortest, darkest day of the year, and often one of the coldest. This year, it was also the date on which the Australia Colombia Friendship Association, in collaboration with the Embassy of Colombia in Australia, hosted a celebration in honour of Colombia’s Independence Day (which actually occurred one day earlier). Let’s just say, it was decidedly not dark or cold inside the church hall that serv