Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to announce that I was at the Bream Creek Show on Saturday in my electorate. This is an annual show, one of the better country shows in the country. I am sorry to tell my good friend the member for Moreton that not only do I have a brewery in my electorate but I have distilleries as well. Three of them were on display at the Bream Creek Show—Nonesuch, Hellfire and The Retiring; three very good gin distilleries. It was a great show. Giant pumpkins, boot-throwing, woodchopping, vintage cars—all the things you would expect from a country show. One of the unfortunate things was the lack of EFTPOS connection. The traders had signs up saying they had EFTPOS connection. Country people do not walk around with great wads of cash in their pockets and a bottle of gin is usually $100 to $200. When they handed over their cards, the EFTPOS just did not work. It is a real failure by this government to not provide telecommunications networks that are needed for regional and rural Tasmania to ensure that traders can operate properly at these sorts of shows. Thousands of dollars were lost which is a terrible shame for the Bream Creek Show. It is a great show and I encourage you to go there, Deputy Speaker Claydon, next time you are in Tasmania. Here's hoping the EFTPOS is working next time.