Page 1814 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021

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In a personal capacity, as I said in my inaugural speech a few months ago, my first job was as a pizza delivery driver in a 1979 Holden Barina. My very first car accident was at that very intersection. I should have been home from delivering two Hawaiians, a bottle of Coke and some garlic bread. Coming out left, Skippy got me. Skippy came off second-best, unfortunately, but it was a dusty experience for a young P-plater and I am sure it speaks to the experience of many of the young people coming in and out of the suburb of Theodore who Mr Parton cited in his contribution.

There will be a professional and personal sigh of relief and enthusiastic response from me and my team to see some action on that particularly cumbersome intersection.

Sport—Bonner oval—petition 7-21

MS ORR (Yerrabi) (10.14): I will be speaking about the facilities at Bonner oval—or, as we refer to it, the Bonner bubbler petition. I was very happy to sponsor this petition for Sanjay Sharma, who is an active user of the oval and organises a lot of cricket tournaments, particularly for the multicultural community. Sanjay’s passion has seen a neighbourhood oval become quite a hub of activity, with a cricket tournament all year round, and training on that field, as well as now a women’s tournament, because women wanted to get involved. He has now expanded that to include cricket for younger people, boys and girls, so that they can get involved.

It is fantastic to see so much of the community coming together around a passion, driven by Sanjay, for cricket. One thing he tells me that they would really like—he actually has a long list, but one thing at the top—is a bubbler. While they are all out there, playing and running around, they get quite thirsty, and they would really like to have better access to water.

I look forward to working with the minister on this facility, this oval, to see whether we can come up with what, hopefully, should be quite a straightforward improvement to the area.

Planning—green waste—petition 19-21

MS CASTLEY (Yerrabi) (10.15): I will be speaking to the petition on green waste facilities in west Belconnen. Madam Speaker, so many times I have to stand in the chamber and explain simple business operations to an out-of-touch government. There are so many times when the Labor-Greens government have overlooked the needs of small businesses and the pressures that operators face, including mounting costs and staffing challenges.

That is why, earlier this year, the Canberra Liberals called on the government to show that it genuinely supports small business by establishing a small business ministerial advisory council. As I have said before, Canberra is a thriving public service town, and we are so fortunate to have such an outstanding public service. But Canberra also has a strong business sector that we must support and grow.


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