Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to pay tribute to two local residents who received well-deserved Queen’s Birthday Honours awards. Firstly, Mr Paul Wheelton of Chirnside Park was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to children and youth through a range of charitable organisations. As deputy chairman and treasurer of the children’s charity, Variety, and chairman of Life Education Victoria since 2006, Mr Wheelton started the ‘Drugs are not recreational, Drugs are Drugs’ campaign. He is a board member for the Marsh Foundation which supports an orphanage in Bali. His contribution to the community is longstanding and his award is well and truly deserved.

I also want to pay tribute to Patricia Maggs who also received a Medal of the Order of Australia. Patricia was instrumental in founding the Caladenia Day Care Centre in 1983. Caladenia supports carers of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and offers a variety of support programs, and importantly, respite programs to assist carers and family members have some much-needed time away from their caring duties in the safe knowledge that their loved ones are being looked after by great staff at the Caladenia Day Care Centre. Trish established one of the first support groups for people living with dementia on top of providing state-of-the-art respite for carers. I have been fortunate to visit Caladenia on numerous occasions and see firsthand the wonderful work that all of the staff and volunteers at the centre put in and all of the great results they achieve on a daily basis.

Caladenia’s unwavering dedication to providing the best possible care for people with dementia continues today. Recently, Trish was delighted to learn—as were other members of the staff in the Caladenia community—that VCAT had granted planning permits to enable the development of dementia specific emergency and overnight respite adjacent to the current premises. All at Caladenia Day Centre are very fond of Trish, but they are also extremely fond of another Maggs at the centre, and that is Maggs the dog, a friendly golden retriever whom all who visit Caladenia very much cherish. Patricia is still very active at the day care centre and is currently a member of the management committee. I pay tribute to her, to all of the volunteers and to the staff, particularly Anne Welsch and Sarah Yeates, who do such a wonderful job in the local community.