Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday two significant events were held in my electorate of Page. One was in Grafton and was called Deadly Days. The other was in Lismore and was a jobs forum called Keep Australia Working. Deadly Days was supported by the Australian government and overwhelmingly supported locally. I commend the TAFE’s North Coast Aboriginal Learning Partnerships for their work and in particular Tony Driese for his work and commitment to making sure it was successful. There are actually three of them over the whole North Coast, but this particular one was in my electorate. I also want to thank local musician and Indigenous woman Evette Clague, who represented me at the Deadly Days and gave a lovely speech, which was prepared in braille so Evette could read it. I want to publicly thank her for that.

I also thank the 110 community members, representatives of business, industry, unions and local government, including the mayors of Coffs Harbour, Tenterfield and Lismore, for their part in the success of the jobs forum. I thank Jason Clare, Parliamentary Secretary for Employment, and Bill Kelty, who was there as a local jobs champion, particularly a jobs champion for regional Australia, for helping to run it. I thank Christine Williams, the interim local employment coordinator, and I welcome on board Terry Watson, just appointed as the local employment coordinator.