Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I spent Australia Day travelling down to the beautiful west coast of Tasmania. I went to the Strahan picnic, which my esteemed colleague from the electorate of Lyons and I shared last year as we celebrated the handover of the west coast from the electorate of Braddon to the electorate of Lyons. Whilst I was down there—and I know the member for Lyons will be really pleased to hear this, because he still visits there—it was great to see that the shared pathway at Strahan is well and truly underway. Although unauthorised use is not allowed, everyone was on it, as they are on most shared pathways. I also noticed that the one at Tullah is just about completed. So that is great news for the west coast, which I also visited a little bit later in the week to announce funding of $300,000 that we contributed to the airport at Queenstown for emergency services. I was very happy to be there with the mayor and the local community. They now also have a new paramedic, with his wife, who has moved down from Queensland. She is now working in the Queenstown Hospital. That is great news and it is terrific that the Rudd government was able to make and will continue to make an important contribution to the beautiful west coast.

Earlier I was up in the beautiful far north-west of Tasmania in Circular Head at Smithton where I was very honoured to open, in partnership with the local council, a shared pathway at Smithton. The government contributed almost $300,000 to that and the local community contributed $130,000. It was a beautiful day, as it generally is when I am in Circular Head. Many people are using these shared pathways. The quicker we actually join up most of our centres in Australia with shared pathways the better. I cannot think of a better investment for both community capital and for health and wellbeing. It is fantastic. Congratulations to the Circular Head Council.

Whilst there I was also able to announce funding of $4.5 million for a combined trades training centre. The Circular Head Christian School received $1.5 million to develop a trades training centre on their site looking at, in particular agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture, and the polytechnic at Circular Head, along with the Smithton High School, received $3 million. In particular, that will be concentrating on automotive studies, general construction and electrical and metal studies. Finally, on another related matter which affects Tasmania, I want to congratulate Minister Garrett on sorting out the mess in relation to the mako fishery. This came about because of legislation passed by the former government. We were bound by that and are now honouring that, but we will bring in legislation to fix it. (Time expired)