Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday I held my annual seniors forum, a seniors information day, at the Halekulani Bowling Club in the Central Coast part of my electorate. Firstly, I would like to thank Halekulani Bowling Club for making their facilities available to me and the over 100 seniors that attended on the day. I would also like to thank the club for the technical support they provided.

We had an excellent day. It commenced with the wonderful Russell Bridge arranging for the seniors to undertake some exercises. He is over 70 years of age and I think that he would leave most people for dead when it comes to fitness levels. We even had people who were wheelchair-bound sitting on their chairs undertaking exercises. It was really fantastic to see and a good way to start the day.

That was followed up by one of our local solicitors, Michelle Divine, who came along and addressed the forum. I would just like to put on the record here that John Lees, who has been the solicitor who has come and presented to the seniors forum since the inaugural meeting, passed away two weeks ago from a brain tumour. He was a fantastic person who really had a strong sense of community, and that is a sense of community that his practice is still continuing when they come along to the seniors forums.

Michelle from the solicitor's office was followed by The Aged-care Rights Service. They gave an excellent presentation, as they always do. We then had Centrelink come and talk to the forum and they were followed by the Heart Foundation, which talked about healthy lifestyle and the issues that relate to risk of cardiovascular disease and the steps that people can take to lower their risk. Once again it was an excellent session, and out of that we heard about a lot of initiatives that are happening in the community—some of the seniors were able to be linked to the healthy heart walking groups.

The day concluded with a presentation by the local police. That was an excellent presentation. As well as the police officer who addressed the forum we had a volunteer in policing; they were an excellent duo. I thank everybody who was involved with the day. I think that everybody who attended had a wonderful time.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.