Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the summer parliamentary recess many of us went back to our home states and took the time to reconnect with our family, friends and the electorates we serve. But while we were doing this, thousands of Australians were once again dropping all personal and work commitments to fight bushfires, save lives and deliver welfare support to the needy and disadvantaged in our community. Essentially, thousands of Australians were doing what they do best: volunteering their services for the benefit of their local community.

On January 25, the day prior to Australia Day, I got a chance to pay my respects to some of the hardest-working volunteers and community group leaders in my area and thank them for really making a difference to the lives of others. Since I started the Deakin Community Australia Day Awards back in 1997, I have sought to acknowledge the hardest-working volunteers and community leaders in my electorate through these awards. Whether it is through helping a local church or school or helping people from other nations make the transition to our way of life, these recipients each contribute to the building blocks of our community and as a result make the bonds that bind us together as a society stronger.

The Deakin Community Australia Day Awards are a way of publicly and respectfully recognising the great efforts of our unsung community heroes, which in turn may inspire other people to do more for their communities too. The people we honoured that day came from a diverse range of backgrounds and ages, yet they each shared the same values of compassion, hard work and a tireless attitude to community involvement.

These are people such as Sai Kit Chan, who arrived in Australia with few English language skills and went on to become a director of one of eastern Melbourne’s best multicultural learning centres and who now devotes much of his time tutoring and assisting new migrants to integrate into the Australian way of life. These are hardworking and inspiring youth leaders such as Faye Monkhouse, who, through 22 years of service to the Girl Guides movement, has taught young women valuable skills and positive reinforcement which will imbue them with confidence for many years to come.

My thoughts today are with the family of another recipient, Diego Novella. Diego, better known as Dick, who passed away last night after a long illness, founded, ran and spent countless hours organising events for the Maroondah Italian Senior Citizens Club so that many members of the local Italian community would not remain isolated and alone in their latter years. I am sure his memory will live on through the hard work and commitment he devoted to the people he served for over 20 years. My thoughts and prayers are with his family this evening.

Then there are those, such as Allen Maher, who overcome their own disabilities and challenges to help others. Allen, a long-time sufferer of MS, and his wife, Betty, have for the past six years acted as foster parents to eight children fleeing from abusive homes. He has also taught classes for the past 12 years on how to live with a disability, imparting valuable skills with great empathy and passion.

This is only a sample of the 37 recipients I was honoured to meet and acknowledge that day. These 37 local heroes—often you only have to look over your back fence to find a local hero rather than trying to seek that hero through the media—in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne who work or live either in the municipalities of Whitehorse and Maroondah were recognised for their great deeds.

The Deakin Community Australia Day Award winners know what strong communities mean and how to make them stronger. They are the backbone of the area, acting as a rock of support and often being the first to lend a helping hand to those in need. The awards are, as I say each year, not meant to be rewards for their work but simply an acknowledgement of their service and an opportunity for me, as their representative, to say thank you. In most cases, they are very reluctant recipients of the awards because, as they say, they do not do it for the reward; they do it for the love of it. I started these awards to bring attention to the often thankless tasks of these people. I know that through their efforts they inspire others. It was a great honour to meet these people and to give them their awards.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a table of the recipients and the deeds and activities for which they were rightly recognised.

Leave granted.

The table read as follows—