Page 693 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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I would also like to commend Susan Batts, Anne Freeman and the other Our Wellness Foundation volunteers who made the event possible. There were many generous sponsors and supporters, and they include: Lions International, Fernwood, Balloon Aloft, Murrays Coaches, Nutrimetics Naturally, Q ACT, the Ellcon group, Dick Smith’s Genuine Australian Foods, Canberra Day Spa, the ACT Fire Brigade, BridgeClimb Sydney, Club Lime, Hotondo Homes, Constable Kenny Koala and Mix 106.3.
I would like to thank the board of the Our Wellness Foundation—John de la Torre, the chairman; Dr Graham Reynolds, the deputy chair; Gai Brodtmann; Veronica Croome; Professor Nicholas Glasgow; Dr Tanya Robertson; Deborah Rolfe; Hilary Russell; Dr Anne Sneddon; Andrew Taylor, also the trustee; and Moira Lye, the executive officer.
The Our Wellness Foundation was established in 2008. The foundation aims to raise money for the strategies, services and research that promote the health and wellbeing of the people of the Australian Capital Territory and surrounding region. To achieve this aim it seeks to raise money for new services and facilities in the health sector, in addition to what is already being provided through government and the private sector. The foundation works with the community to ensure an effective partnership between the community and healthcare providers. The Our Wellness Foundation has a friends program, and they are people who are interested in directing the foundation’s work. They receive invitations to their fundraisers and other opportunities to participate in local health initiatives.
I would like to thank all those donors, sponsors, volunteers, friends and board members who are so committed to improving healthcare in the ACT. More information about the foundation can be found at the foundation’s website at www.ourwellnessfoundation.org.au.
Mr Speaker, today I join many people throughout the world mourning the loss of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died just a few hours ago in Havana, Cuba. Visitors to my office would have seen a poster on my wall entitled “Freedom for Cuba’s prisoners of conscience” provided to me by a friend, Aramis Perez, executive secretary of Young Cubans in Action. The poster highlights 20 political prisoners who have been imprisoned in Cuba for speaking out for freedom. I seek leave to table a copy of that poster.
Leave granted.
MR COE: I table the following paper:
“Freedom for Cuba’s prisoners of conscience”—Poster.
Soon after Tamayo’s arrest in 2003, Amnesty International called for the Cuban government:
… to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience, imprisoned solely for having peacefully exercised their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
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