Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to pay tribute to some worthy recipients of awards in the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours List last Monday. I begin by saying that two outstanding recipients were two local mayors in my electorate. The first was Linton Reynolds, the Mayor of the Armadale Council, who lives in Kelmscott. Linton Reynolds has done a sensational job as mayor of that city. He has been the mayor of Armadale for most of the time that I have been the member. He has taken it from a rather depressed city that was going through hard times into a city of growth, and I pay tribute to him. He has received a number of citations and awards—for example, the Centenary Medal in 2001 and a local government award in Western Australia. Mayor Reynolds is the person who gets the job done in a no-nonsense fashion. He has a harmonious council, and he has welded together a marvellous community. As an aside, he is a former Vietnam veteran and somebody who has a form of MS which is somewhat debilitating to him in doing his job—but he never complains or uses it as an excuse. He gets on and does the job.

The other recipient is the Mayor of Canning, Dr Michael Lekias, known as Mick Lekias. He has received this award not so much for his job as the Mayor of the City of Canning but for service to the Greek community through a range of business, cultural, sporting and welfare organisations and for service to medicine, because he is a medical doctor. Mick is a charismatic person. If you went to a citizenship ceremony before the council, you were always sat down and asked if you wanted a beer, gin et cetera with him, irreverently having a smoke beforehand in a non-smoking area. Mick is a fantastic bloke whom the council is lucky to have had. That council was sacked some years ago due to its inability to operate. He was placed there as somebody who would heal the council. He has been there ever since and has done a fantastic job, so I congratulate Mick Lekias.

There are other people that I would like to mention in some detail later: Professor John Yovich, for his service to tertiary education. He is the vice-chancellor of Murdoch University. There is also Mr Ron Doubikin of Roleystone in my electorate; Professor Anne McMurray, for her service to nursing; Mr Bruce Gordon Martin of Roleystone; and Rolly Tasker. Those in yachting know Rolly Tasker for his fantastic achievements not only in ocean racing but in the first America’s Cup challenge. I would also like to mention Eric Charlton for his service to—and, as my time has expired, I seek leave to table these citations. (Time expired)

Leave granted.