Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about what I see as a victory for the seat of Forde and the community of Tamborine Mountain. It is great to see the member for Throsby is here in this chamber today when I talk about Tamborine Mountain. It is an area she has some connection with and during my campaign the member for Throsby worked very hard to show my constituents how we as a government would represent the people of Forde and certainly of Tamborine Mountain. The victory I refer to is about the Zamia Theatre, which I have spoken about in this chamber before. The Zamia Theatre is a very historic venue and asset on the mountain. It started in 1924 as a local hall which had a local theatre group but was also a community hall for other events. Through its history it has been owned by private interests and at one stage the Tamborine Mountain Progress Association, who more recently, a number of years ago, realised that because of the maintenance required on the building it needed to have a helping hand. To their credit the Beaudesert Shire Council, now the Scenic Rim Regional Council, took some responsibility for that.

Unfortunately, in the period leading up to the last election there was a commitment of funding under the RPP, the Regional Partnerships Program, which essentially did not materialise. It was an unfunded commitment. Becoming the member, I stood in the middle of this theatre, which had been gutted to take out some of the asbestos and other materials that were to be replaced, and it had no future funding. I have a great amount of gratitude to Queensland government, and I acknowledge their assistance by providing funding through their Q150 funding, which was to celebrate 150 years of Queensland. Further to that, there has been some money from the community infrastructure funds that our government, the Rudd government, have put in place. With the help of the Scenic Rim Regional Council, that has allowed this project to continue.

It was a project that in the end cost in the vicinity of $800,000. It has brought back an iconic building to the community, an asset that we almost lost. I know that the people who have been involved in this, such as Mayor John Brent, supported the three tiers of government coming together to make a project like this successful. The community worked very hard to maintain the understanding that this facility should be saved. There were hard decisions made by some of the council officers. This asset was probably going to be demolished. Clearly, having the three tiers of government working together to support what is a very important iconic community theatre has meant that we now have the Zamia Theatre back in production. At a function on Friday night, they were celebrating the success of the people of the mountain and the representations at all levels of government. I wish all success to the Rudd government and the Queensland government.