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

One of the activities I do within the Shortland electorate is to hold forums on a variety of issues to provide information while having a lot of fun at the same time. These are social events where people get to know each other. Over the year we have had in excess of 1,000 people attend these forums—we have had breast cancer forums, ovarian cancer forums and also a cancer awareness forum, all of which were very successful and raised a lot of money that was donated to the various groups for research into cancer.

I also hold seniors forums where information is presented by a number of presenters during the day. I have held four seniors forums this year. Recently I held the Charlestown seniors forum, and I would like to thank Central Charlestown Leagues Club for making their premises available to us and for the great support they gave us. I would also like to thank the wonderful guest speakers we had: Warwick Gilbertson from Turnbull Hill Lawyers, who gave a fantastic presentation; and Stephen McAlister, who is employed by Lake Macquarie City Council. I might add that I asked the mayor of Lake Macquarie City Council, Jodie Harrison, to introduce Stephen, and she did so. Then we had Linda Brindle from Hearing Australia, whose presentation was particularly popular, with seniors lining up afterwards to have hearing assessments. I really hope that the government does not privatise Hearing Australia, because it plays a valuable role in the community.

After lunch—of course there was continuous tea, coffee and biscuits—we had Robyn McLean from Centrelink. I think Robyn has spoken at every seniors forum I have had this year, and she demystifies Centrelink for everybody who is present. The wonderful Deb Moore from the Heart Foundation got everybody moving and exercising, and Alan Dick spoke about U3A. Each of these speakers was fantastic, and as well as that we had a number of information tables available for seniors. Thank you to everybody who was involved.