Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday I had the great pleasure of joining about 200 other guests as we celebrated the 100th birthday of Mr Cedric Andrew in Mackay. Any time that you celebrate a 100th birthday it is something special, but this one was particularly unique. Mr Andrew is known to be the oldest living Australian South Sea islander in Queensland and, indeed, Australia. The celebration had a very strong family sense but was also very significant at a community level as well.

Cedric was born in a grass hut on the banks of Sandy Creek at Homebush, which is near Mackay, on 5 February 1911. We celebrated not only his many long years and the contribution that he has made as a loving father and grandfather and uncle but also his leadership role within the South Sea island community. The history of the South Sea islanders, who were often blackbirded from islands such as Vanuatu and the Solomons to work in the cane industry back in the late 19th century, is very well known in the Mackay and Central Queensland region of Queensland together with the great contribution that they have made to the sugar industry and to the community generally in the years since.

Cedric is a great bloke. At the party on Saturday, guests listened as members of his family and people who had known him and worked with him for many years came to the microphone to tell us stories about Cedric’s life as a canecutter and later as a railway worker. He has always fostered and shared a very strong link with his culture, his community and his people back in Vanuatu. One very special part of the celebration was the involvement of one of Cedric’s family members from Vanuatu. Jameson Bani had come over from Vanuatu with gifts from Cedric’s people back on Vanuatu. There really was a sense amongst the crowd there on Saturday that we were part of something very special and very significant for the South Sea Islander community. I am told by Cedric’s nephew, Greg Sutherland, who himself has a very high profile in Mackay as the president of the rugby league up there, that Cedric was still partying on at 9.30. It was right to honour Cedric and I am so pleased that he enjoyed the celebration of what has been a very long, happy and productive life. (Time expired)