Page 1168 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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The awarding of centenary medals is another. It was Sir William Deane’s idea that a centenary medal should be commissioned. Then the government worked with him about who should receive that medal, wanting it to be a prestigious medal and a restricted one. At one ceremony I had the honour of giving one to all of our citizens who were 100 years or over. Then spending a day going around to all the nursing homes and people’s private homes to individually present the medals to those who were not able to attend the ceremony was a great honour. It was an honour to get the feedback from those citizens about how special it made them feel having their contribution acknowledged in that way by the community. In a few months probably, we will get the honour of doing that for all the babies that were born on 12 March. I actually have not seen how many were born on 12 March, but that will round out that initiative.
From my point of view, we should look at how we keep the strength of the community involvement in the centenary going. The parties at the shops are something that I definitely would like to see continue. They were not high-cost events. I would like to acknowledge the organisers of the parties at the shops. They have done an extraordinary job on a very small budget to actually roll that program out. I know they call in a lot of favours to get them done, but at Lyneham the other night there were probably around 400 people there for a good part of the evening. I know Yarralumla was very popular. I heard that Wanniassa was popular. I think they have all been popular in their own way. I heard how Downer was really good. O’Connor, I think, went off on the birthday night. So I think the more we can get some of that local activity happening, the better. I know the schools have all got really involved in the parties at the shops as well.
But to all of the organisers who are hopefully putting their feet up just for a day or two this week, congratulations on a job well done so far. There is another nine months to go. I look forward to being there to witness some of those events but also to see us continue to raise the profile of Canberra. Going on what I said around the issues of criticisms of Canberra, I think probably being 100 means we can stop being defensive of who we are. We know who we are. We can celebrate who we are and I think the message of Canberra that we are sending out to the world is a very positive one.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (5.19), in reply: I would like to thank all members for their contributions. I think all of the contributions were fantastic. Mr Smyth suggested perhaps it is time for us to lose our shyness and be proud of Canberra, and I agree with Mr Smyth. I think all of us here in the Assembly are very proud of Canberra. But of course there is a national, I guess, feeling of what Canberra is, and I think the centenary celebrations are helping us get over that wave that we see from the national media.
Mr Rattenbury mentioned that the atmosphere on our celebration day was really good. And it was great to see the events oversubscribed and not undersubscribed, and I agree with him there. As I said, I think there were 150,000-odd people around the lake on the day. So that was fantastic. Also I agree it was really fantastic to see so many of our former members here for our own celebration yesterday. Mr Rattenbury raised the
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