Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even though St George is 530 kilometres west of my electorate of Moreton, I'm proud to be joint patron, with the member for Maranoa, the agriculture minister, of the St George's Chinese Community Memorial Committee, along with the local mayor, Richard Marsh. We are working with the committee, chaired by Jack Sun, and also with Lewis Lee, Simon Tang, Richard Huang, Vicky Yu, Rachel Zang, Peter Zheng, Chek Ling, Melody Chen and Michael Ma, on erecting a memorial in the St George cemetery to all the people of the Chinese community who have contributed to the Balonne district.

It's a great project to be working on, especially after a grassfire went through the cemetery in the seventies and burnt out all the wooden Chinese markers. Working on this committee, I've been given a certificate of appointment. I've got to get one for the member for Maranoa next time we're down here in parliament and hand it over to him.

We've had a fundraising design competition, won by year 8 student Daisy Brown, a student at St George State High School, and we're having a further fundraising dinner at the Landmark Restaurant at 6 pm on Saturday 30 June to ensure there is enough money to erect the memorial, which will be a great stop for tourists and also a great link between my city electorate and the electorate of Maranoa. It's been a great committee to be part of and I look forward to unveiling it, maybe in April next year—maybe around St George's Day.