Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could not help noticing, if you lived in Parramatta and you walked down the streets or attended the local markets, the growing number of fashion designers that are springing up in our community that are producing some really wonderful work. You cannot talk about fashion design in Parramatta without starting with Anna Bourke who has been designing and selling her work for over 20 years in Parramatta. But there is now a whole range of new ones: Ruth Fattal, who occupies one of the pop-up stores that Parramatta council provides, and a group of young African women who are drawing on African fabrics and African design—Wachena, Lesem and Wanyka—all of whom do wonderful creative work. Then there is Seewa Creations who designs here in Australia but has her jewellery manufactured by the Maasai women in Kenya. There is Dream N Art, who I am wearing today—I only discovered them on the weekend—designed in Seven Hills and manufactured in their first country of Nepal. Then of course there is Precious Pieces up in Castle Hill in the electorate of Mitchell. She makes really quite extraordinary jewellery in both the modern and traditional forms. They are all wonderful designers, and when you see them together you realise what an extraordinarily diverse and talented community it is in Western Sydney. I congratulate them all. They are the shining light of Western Sydney and I wish them all the best.