Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give praise to a number of local organisations in our electorate. Firstly, I would like to recognise the efforts of the Logan City Council for winning both the Inclusive and Connected Communities Award and the Design, Development and Management Award for Parks at the Queensland Parks and Leisure Australia awards last month. The awards were received in recognition of the council's work on recreational trails throughout Logan City and particularly for their work restoring Tygum Lagoon. Logan City Council work diligently to lift the community of Logan, a community that often receives negative feedback from outsiders, but let me tell you that Logan is full of positive stories, and I really enjoy being able to share them in this place.

On that note, one of our local schools, St Joseph's Tobruk Memorial School, has recently taken out the state title in the Wakakirri story-dance festival in only their second year of taking part. The cowboy-themed performance involved 39 students from years 4 to 7, and the school now plans to compete for the national title. I wish them all the best in that endeavour.

It would not be possible to hear all these great stories from our community without the support and encouragement of our local community newspapers, which do a fantastic job in both promoting local issues and pressing for solutions to them. I acknowledge the editor of Albert and Logan News, Lesley Hunter-Nolan, who recently won an award at the Quest newspapers awards for editorial coverage, and her colleague Judith Maizey. I wish them all the best for the future.