Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you know, spring is a time for renewal, and in McEwen we take this time very, very seriously with festivals and food celebrations right across the electorate. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 15th annual Tastes of the Goulburn Festival in Seymour. The festival is held to give local winemakers, brewers, restauranteurs, producers and craftsmen an opportunity to showcase just what this region has to offer.

Seymour came out in force for this event, and I had a marvellous time catching up with local volunteers and community groups, hearing all about the local news and getting up to date on how the farming season is looking for our regional farmers.

Special thanks have got to go to Glenys and Paul Legins for inviting me up there and taking me around and helping me enjoy the day. We were entertained by of course Seymour FM103.9 on your dial where we listened to the dulcet tones of Aunty Alice as she kept us entertained during the morning. The Scouts were out in force, spending the day sharing their messages of peace and making sure that people who caught the steam train up had a great time.

With renewal, of course, always comes reflection, and this time of the year it is the Diwali festivals that happen right across our nation. The festival of lights is celebrated. Diwali is a significant event in the Hindu calendar not just marking the new year but it is a time to celebrate the core qualities of life—family, community and equity while cultivating optimism for what is yet to come. With Diwali, we caste out the light that dispels ignorance, darkness and despair—and maybe we need a few more lights over the other side there, I think—to bring in the lights of hope, peace, freedom and togetherness.

I was proud to sponsor this event, because it is such an exciting event which brings multicultural communities and religions together to take part in this renewal. It is what makes Whittlesea so important and such a great place to be when you have got the Whittlesea multicultural association—people like Tom Joseph and all the volunteers and the staff—bringing all our communities together and sharing in the sounds and tastes that Diwali has to offer. It is something that is so important, and we need to keep nurturing it.

It also brings me to my final acknowledgment for today: on Saturday I had the honour of being present for the unveiling of the plinth of honour to Seymour's own 37AIF Battalion. This year is the 100th anniversary of the battalion's formation, brought together in Seymour and trained at Puckapunyal, for the First World War.

A thousand of these men went to war, locals, and, at the end of the war only 90 of them survived. These were some of our finest raiding battalions that went to the First World War and made sure that they did their very best. There were men, many decorated soldiers in the event, including Captain Robert Grieve who was awarded the Victoria Cross.

The high point of the day was knowing that the plinth was being opened by living relatives of the men who fought in the 37th Battalion. And I think it is so important that we have the Light Horse Memorial Park committee and the Lions Club doing these things. (Time expired)