Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the pleasure of spending a morning with my gloves on, weeding and litter clearing with the Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee's bush rovers program in Carindale. They're also known as B4C. In Bonner,we are blessed to have beautiful natural environment, and it's up to all of us to do our bit to protect and preserve it. B4C, together with their fabulous volunteers, certainly do that each and every day. Through the first round of the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program, Labor delivered $165,000 in funding to B4C for their Bulimba and Bayside Creek catchments recovery program. If locals are interested in getting involved in the bush rovers program, B4C takes volunteers each and every day of the week, so please get in touch with them. No experience is necessary. I want to thank them for the extraordinary work that they do right across our electorate and right across the city of Brisbane.

I also recently visited Jesse and the team at Mount Gravatt's Active Kids Early Learning Centre. On Saturday, the centre opened its doors to meet the community as part of its open day. It was a wonderful chance for local families to explore the space, meet the educators and get a feeling for the community. Active Kids is a Queensland family owned and operated business with seven centres in operation. The Mount Gravatt East centre supports 153 kids in care, and they are open for enrolment at the moment as well. When I visited, I saw firsthand the care, warmth and energy that makes this centre so special. It was lovely to provide them with some new Australian flags for the centre as well.

The Albanese Labor government values our early childhood educators, and that is why we delivered a 15 per cent pay rise to early childhood educators to support them and their important work. From January this year, all Australian children are now eligible for three days of subsidised care each and every week thanks to Labor's three-day childcare guarantee. I say a big thankyou to Jesse and all our early childhood educators right across Bonner for the incredible work they do each and every day in educating and caring for our children at their earliest and most important stages of life.

It's also fantastic to see the real impact our urgent care clinics are already having right across my community in Bonner. Since December, the Carina-Carindale urgent care clinic has already cared for over 2,400 residents. At the Capalaba clinic, over 2,450 people have walked through the doors since it opened in December. That's thousands of locals getting the care they need when they need it most without having to wait at an emergency department. Urgent care clinics are absolutely delivering for my community of Bonner, and I am so proud that we've had the delivery of not one but two locally. So thank you to the Albanese Labor government for continuing to deliver for all Australians.