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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I'd like to tell you about the return of a dragon and the construction of a wonderful monument out in my home town of St George.

This was a memorial to the Chinese community, designed by a young school student, Daisy Brown. The project architect was Lewis MP Lee; the structural architect was Dr Peter Ho; the builder was Wing Hing Builders; and it was all supervised by Lewis Lee. The unveiling ceremony for this project occurred on the weekend, out in the electorate of the agriculture minister, David Littleproud. We worked on this together; we were co-patrons, with the mayor, Richard Marsh.

Under the chairmanship of Jack Sun, the St George Chinese Community Memorial was a project which brought many people together. It was a wonderful opening ceremony, with the local councillors there and also Megan O'Hara Sullivan from the Toowoomba Shire Council. Also out there were Consul-General Shen Ang from the Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China and local community leaders: Hugh Polson from the Sunnybank RSL and Surendra Prasad. This event was overseen by Chek Ling, the heritage adviser.

Simon Tang spoke, as did quite a few other people. Near the end of the project, we saw Melody Chen actually donate a dragon to the St George community. It was all about recognising the contribution of the Chinese diaspora to that part of St George, but it's a story that could be told in any town in Australia.