I always love being able to provide an update to this place on some of the incredible people that call my community home. In particular, I want to shout-out a few people who caught up with me last Friday in my first of my multicultural roundtables that I held in my office. This captured community leaders from the northern parts of my electorate, from Tullamarine, Gladstone Park, Glenroy and Gowan Brae.

I want to thank Aruna, Harun, Lina, Niva, Ramsin, Sadaf and Siad for spending the morning with me to talk about their experiences, their insights and how we can support their communities better in the work that we do, in particular around shared concerns of cost-of-living pressures, mental health and how we're supporting our young people. Being able to work directly in our communities is how we make sure we can bring people along with us.

I also want to do a massive shout-out to the wonderful grade 5-6 class at Moonee Ponds West Primary School, who invited me into their classroom last Friday to pepper me with questions on how this place works, the job that I do and how I engage with my community. Some of their questions were pretty hard hitting, I must say. They really put me through my paces. In particular, they asked me: How much does an MP earn? What's the PM's favourite food? I couldn't quite answer that, but it was such an incredible opportunity to see the excitement that they have for civics education and the role that they play in helping drive our communities forward. With the number of kids in that room who I could see as future members of this place, we are in no shortage of opportunities for young people to contribute to this great place in years to come.

I also want to shout-out the Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley, who are celebrating their 40th year. They were formed in 1986 by locals who wanted to support the Maribyrnong River, from which my electorate takes its name. I must say, the 'Maribyrnong' comes from, 'Can you hear the ringtail possum?' That's the First Nations language. Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley for 40 years have been supporting that river and the parklands, as I said. Over that time, volunteers have put in more than 150,000 hours and planted more than 500,000 trees and shrubs along the valley. I also want to particularly acknowledge their role and the work they did during the floods in October 2022, when the river came up into people's homes, and the banks were left under silt and rubbish. They were still going out there cleaning months after. It is those people that really make Maribyrnong the best place to be.