Matt Thistlethwaite (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to inform the Senate of the tremendous work of a number of community organisations in New South Wales that I have had the great pleasure of meeting and of viewing the work that they perform in my first two months as a senator. In July I was fortunate to join the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre to celebrate its 10th birthday in Sydney. The Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre should be praised for their efforts in fostering and nurturing new Indigenous leaders through a range of programs, through networking opportunities and through building a strong foundation in identity and promoting the value of Indigenous leaders. It was wonderful to meet a number of the graduates of that Indigenous leadership program at their 10th anniversary dinner and to talk to them about the benefits of the program and how that program had inspired them to become leaders in their particular communities, to take on further studies and to take on vocations and opportunities that they may not have otherwise had visited upon them had they not been graduates of this particular program. I congratulate the Indigenous Leadership Centre for the great work that they are doing in our community.

Later in the month I was fortunate to attend the Golden Wattle Awards with the Chinese community in New South Wales. These awards recognise the momentous contribution that Chinese Australians have made to our country and to enhance the unity of our multicultural nation. The golden wattle, the symbol of these awards, is Australia's national flower. It represents friendship and unity among people. This was the inaugural awarding of these particular awards and they recognised excellence in the promotion and fostering of good relations between the Chinese and Australian communities in a number of areas, including business, academia, sport and philanthropy. I was fortunate to be involved in presenting a number of those awards to very studious and hardworking members of the Australian Chinese community. Our two countries have a long history of friendship and cooperation. It is through initiatives such as these awards that the relationship continues to thrive.

The Chinese-born population in Australia is one of our largest immigrant groups and Chinese visitors, including international students, contribute greatly to this country's social and economic wellbeing. China is a very important two-way trading partner with Australia. Recent growth in Chinese investment has signified the importance of that relationship to the Australian economy. The Golden Wattle Awards are a significant way of creating a better future for this country by promoting and awarding the young role models who will surely serve as examples to the rest of our young citizens.

Later in July I was pleased to make a visit to one of the duty electorates that I have the pleasure of serving in the north of my state, Cowper, to attend the announcement of works that will begin the construction of the nation's largest bridge. The work is another milestone in the long-awaited bypass of Kempsey and Frederickton as well as the ongoing upgrade and full duplication of the Pacific Highway. The government is investing $618 million in this project as part of its Nation Building Program. When the new bypass is completed, it will remove up to 2,000 trucks from the streets of Kempsey each day, improving the safety of our national land transport network as well as the public amenity within Kempsey.

The project is a very big one. It includes the construction of 14½ kilometres of four-lane divided highway, grade separated interchanges at South Kempsey and Frederickton, nine interchange bridge structures, small creek crossings, local road overpasses, a crossing of the main northern rail line and a 3.2 kilometre bridge over the Macleay River flood plain, the longest bridge in Australia. During the project's construc­tion, I am advised that it will directly employ a total of 450 workers and indirectly create another 1,400 jobs for each year of construction. One of the particularly pleasing aspects of this project is seeing the principal contractors working with the local Indigenous community. They have created 10 Indigenous traineeships and will be employing a further 24 Indigenous people across various industries relating to the project.

The federal government's commitment to the Pacific Highway in New South Wales now sits at $4.1 billion. This includes an extra $1 billion in the 2011 budget. Under the Nation Building Program to 2013-14, the government is providing a total of $11.8 billion for land transport infrastructure in New South Wales. I am looking forward to watching the completion of this project and the continuing duplication of the Pacific Highway to deliver on the government's commitment to providing a safe passageway along the eastern seaboard in the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Whilst I was in Cowper, I had the honour of visiting the Kempsey PCYC and meeting with some of the hardworking staff, in particular Paula Skinner, who is the manager of the club and is doing her local area proud. This club runs numerous youth programs which are having an overwhelmingly posi­tive effect on local young people. The programs operated out of this facility include a midnight basketball program and an SAY patrol and are providing youth with real support, particularly those in the community who are deemed to be at risk. The PCYC reaches out to the young people of Kempsey through their programs that offer food, activities or just a safe place to spend a Friday and Saturday night. I was pleased to hear from Ms Skinner that the club's success has seen a reduction in incidents in the local area involving young people on Friday and Saturday nights.

It was also pleasing to see that the club is working in conjunction with the local police officers, the local Indigenous community and local businesses to actively work with youth at risk in those particular hotspot areas. The programs are paying benefits and reducing crime in a number of areas in the electorate of Cowper, so I would like to congratulate Ms Skinner and the CEO of the PCYC in New South Wales, Chris Gardiner, for their tireless commitment to improving the lives of young people.

I would also like to report on the wonderful work of the Kooloora community centre in Malabar in the east of Sydney where I attended an awards ceremony and thanked local volunteers for their hard work and effort. The Kooloora community centre is a fantastic local community organisation predominantly funded through state government grants and the philanthropy of local businesses and organisations. It provides a number of important community resources for locals in that area, including a strong local Indigenous population. I would like to thank and pay tribute to Julie Spies—I hope she will not mind me calling her the mother of the Kooloora community centre—and volunteers like George and Gillian Collinson, who work incredibly hard to keep the show running and serving the local community.

I have also been fortunate to attend a number of Building the Education Revolution ceremonies in a number of electorates—in particular, the Botany Public School, which has officially opened its Johnny Warren community hall and covered outdoor learning centre. I was fortunate to attend that particular event. The hall has been dedicated in honour of the legendary Australian, Johnny Warren, a local from the Botany community whose family still has a connection with that particular school. It is a wonderful piece of infrastructure, achieved and provided under the government's Building the Education Revolution Program.