Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's great to be back, but I think we can all safely say that we've enjoyed the welcome break, in being able to spend more time in our electorates and be reminded of the good-natured character of so many Australians. We know that, with the rising cost of living, this Christmas wasn't easy for a lot of Australian families, but we also know that there are a lot of people out there who are doing their bit to assist fellow Australians, and they do it gladly. Today I want to pay tribute to a handful of people who are doing their bit to help their fellow Australians.

I'll firstly give a shout-out to May and the team at Geraldton headspace, who I recently had the pleasure of catching up with. We all know that youth in the regions are particularly at risk of suffering poor mental health, so this makes it all the more important that they have someone to talk to about their mental health challenges. I had the pleasure of officially opening Geraldton headspace back in 2016 and I'm so thrilled that it has gone from strength to strength. Headspace is a terrific service for our young people, and I've been pleased to see that in the last 12 months we've created three new headspaces in Durack.

I was also lucky to join in the Gingin shire Australia Day celebrations, where we celebrated some wonderful local leaders with the community citizen awards and we also welcomed two new citizens, Georgia and Yi-Wen. All of my colleagues know that one of the absolute favourite things we do is to join people in our electorates at citizenship ceremonies, so it was a thrill to join with the Gingin shire community. Special mention goes to Sylvia Kelly, who I also caught up with at the Gingin event. She is a local legend who's involved with what's called the Gingin Care Group. Among other services, they provide transport to locals for medical appointments in the city. This is such an important service for our locals, particularly our elderly members of the community, who otherwise, I believe, would struggle to get to the city for their medical appointments. Well done to Sylvia and her wonderful caring group of volunteers!

I'd also like to pay tribute to the Morangup Progress Association, the Shire of Toodyay and advocates like Frank Vinton, a local student, for bringing the newly renovated half basketball court to life. This local project was supported by the fantastic Stronger Communities Program, which we know was a great program that supported local organisations to develop beautiful, wonderful projects that were so important to the community. It was fantastic to open the court and to shoot some hoops with everyone else. We all had a good time. I was a bit rusty, but I think we all had a good time nonetheless. This is a great example of a local community coming together and making sure that a local project happened. I give a particular shout-out to all our first responders. Many of you are volunteers. We've all had a tough summer. Thank you so much. We are very grateful to all of you.