Page 1025 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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MR BARR: Mr Hanson can continue his snide interjections, but nothing will detract from the statements that were made during the condolence motion for the late Mr Grassby by leaders of the ACT Liberal Party. I table the following papers:
Multiculturalism—
Hon Al Grassby, AM—Condolence motion—Extract from Hansard, 3 May 2005.
Copy of press release by Mr Doszpot, dated 23 January 2009.
Australia Day message from the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia—Opinion piece, 24 January 2007.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (4.58): I rise to speak briefly to the motion moved by Ms Burch. I would like to congratulate the organisers of the festival. I think it was a successful festival. I got to engage in a number of activities there and I enjoyed them immensely. It was good to see some colleagues at the market day a few Saturdays back, including Ms Bresnan with her balloons, and it was good to see Ms Porter there. It was good to see the minister and the Liberals here as well.
I would like to put on the record my thanks and my commendations to Sam Wong and Dominic Miko. I think they have both done enormously good work in the multicultural space. Their work in the multicultural space was certainly on show over the fortnight.
It was great to see so many ethnic groups represented, and I think it is a tribute to our society that we are so welcoming of so many people from so many different walks of life. I got to engage quite extensively with the Indian community, the Philippino community and the Taiwanese community especially, and I very much enjoyed my interaction there.
I would also like to commend Jorian Gardener of the fringe festival. I went to a few of their events. Whilst it is not quite my cup of tea, as I am sure some members here might imagine, I certainly did enjoy it and I enjoyed speaking with those present. I would also like to put on the record my respect and my admiration for the work done at the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Service. The work they do there on a shoestring budget is absolutely fantastic. The volunteers there contribute to grassroots work to help people—
Mr Hargreaves: It was the Liberals who took their 50 grand off them. It was your mob who took the money off them. I gave it back. You do not hear that from him.
MR COE: feel welcome in Canberra. The work they do is absolutely fantastic. It is disappointing that Mr Hargreaves is interjecting here when I am talking about the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Service because I think his interjecting at this moment does belittle the work that they do.
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