Page 5885 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010

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The association are asking for the United States and United Nations to intervene and end the restrictions on Ashraf residents, for US forces to assume protection of Camp Ashraf, as they did between 2003 and 2008, and for the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq to set up a permanent monitoring team to oversee the situation in Ashraf.

The association are asking for parliamentarians across Australia to support their cause and they have the support and signatures of many members already across the Liberal Party, Labor and Greens. I would urge all members of the Assembly to support the association. While our contribution as a territory is small and maybe somewhat limited in its influence, the association needs our moral support to continue to assist people suffering in Iran and Iraq and to show these people that the world does care about what is happening to them and to their country.

Palliative Care Society

MR HANSON (Molonglo) (5.15): On 11 November I attended the Palliative Care Society’s annual general meeting at the Southern Cross Club. At the outset I note that it is actually the Palliative Care Society’s 25th anniversary and I attended earlier this year the dinner that they held celebrating that anniversary, as did, I note, Annette Ellis.

Fifty-one people attended the AGM at the Orion Room at the Canberra Southern Cross Club and, apart from the normal business that was conducted at the AGM, there were two life memberships awarded at the meeting: one to Sister Teresa Hussey from the Little Company of Mary, who has served on the council since 2002, and one to Pat Hibberd, who has been the society’s auditor for the last 25 years and has contributed numerous voluntary hours auditing the society’s financial record. I congratulate them both on their life memberships. There were also thanks given to outgoing council members Sister Teresa Hussey and Marg Sharp.

There were then elections for positions on the council and six people nominated: Professor Valerie Brown, John Hanks, Peter O’Keeffe, Richard Hall, Jo Spencer and Andre Poidomani, and I congratulate all of those members of the Palliative Care Society for putting their hands up for a position on the council.

Ian Meikle, of CityNews fame, was the guest speaker for the evening. He spoke on managing the media and it certainly was a fascinating and entertaining oration.

It has without doubt been a difficult period for the Palliative Care Society, dealing with the whole Calvary sale fiasco and the involvement of Clare Holland House in that proposal, and I commend the Palliative Care Society and its members for the role that they played in, I think, bringing the end to what was a very shabby element of that proposal. I commend them on their community spirit in what was a very difficult time for the Palliative Care Society. Hopefully that is all behind us now and the Palliative Care Society certainly will continue, as it did through that period, to focus on its core business.

I would like to thank the society’s patron, Mrs Shirley Sutton, and the society’s executive—David Lawrance, the President; Bob Lloyd, the Vice President; Bernie Ayers, the Treasurer; and Linda Denman, the Honorary Secretary—and all of


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