House debates

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Statements by Members

Moreton Electorate: Clean Up Australia Day

1:47 pm

Photo of Graham PerrettGraham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to recognise the many community groups that participated in Clean Up Australia Day in Moreton on the weekend. Hundreds of local groups and individuals took part. I will name a few—the Robertson scout group, the Runcorn State School, the Stable Swamp Creek group, the Tzu Chi Academy, Wellers Hills State School, Junction Park State School, St Aidan's Creek Watch in Rocklea, the Indonesian Muslim Centre, McDonalds at Rocklea and Eight Mile Plains, and even the Annerley branch of the ALP.

I actually dragged along my eight-year-old son Stanley, who had not wanted to come. We went out with the Macgregor Lions, my Lions Club branch. We were off in the bushes and he was whingeing—until we started wandering through finding the rubbish with John Spriggs, the president. We found a bag of sharps, of medical rubbish, which was quite exciting—my son got to see drugs! Then we found a bag of contraband that had been buried under a tree. It was wrapped up in plastic. I thought there was going to be a severed head in it, but there wasn't. Instead, there were two laptops and a lot of jewellery. So my son now wants to go cleaning up Australia every weekend. He saw it as a wonderful event. I thank the Lions Club of Macgregor for organising that and for the great work they did in cleaning up at the park.