CONDOLENCES Walker, Hon. Francis (Frank) John, QC
Labor devotees in the Riverina and many others too are mourning the death of Francis John Walker, QC, better known as Frank, a former government minister in both the New South Wales and Commonwealth parliaments. Lifelong Labor supporter George Martin from Tumbarumba, who visited parliament today, remembered Frank Walker as a decent fellow.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS Riverina Electorate: Melanoma
Amie St Clair was a confident, happy, strong willed, talented and enormously popular sportswoman with a positive attitude. Born and bred in Wagga Wagga, she loved all sport but had a real passion and talent for softball, playing in many representative sides. Wes Bonny was your average fun-loving Australian.
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Defence Families) Bill 2012
Our nation is forever indebted to Australian Defence Force families who make enormous sacrifices. Partners of serving personnel and children wave their loved ones off at airports and docks not knowing if they will ever see them again. We know a soldier killed on duty pays the supreme sacrifice for their country; so too does their family.
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS Renewable Energy
It is important for Australia to establish a sustainable, healthy and safe energy future, but we must ensure we do it without putting environmental measures before people and livelihoods. Support for wind power generation has been driven by a desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a diversification of energy sources.
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS Military Superannuation
This Labor government has not done the right and proper thing by veterans as far as their superannuation entitlements are concerned. I acknowledge what the member for Chisholm has just said. If that is so, let us work together as a parliament for those people she rightly praised in her speech.
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS Olive Oil
I rise this evening to support the motion on the Australian Standard for Olive and Olive-Pomace Oils in 2011. Extra virgin olive oil is the only mainstream edible oil which has not been chemically or physically refined and changed; it is just the natural juice of the olive.
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Defence Families) Bill 2012
Australian Defence Force personnel play an important role, whether they are contributing to the rebuilding of Iraq, partaking in various United Nations peacekeeping operations or involved in multinational exercises within Australia or overseas. However, it is not just our military men and women who are serving our nation.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS – Murray-Darling Basin
Twelve thousand people who turned out at a community meeting at Griffith last December and just under 12,000 submissions from right across Australia do not seem to matter much to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
ADJOURNMENT – Murray-Darling Basin
The New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, has slammed the revised Murray-Darling Basin Plan, saying that it has not given due consideration to any of the issues raised in the New South Wales government’s submission, which detailed a sensible and practical way forward.
Appropriation Bill – May 23 2012
Driving around my electorate of Riverina, the third largest by size in New South Wales and the 14th biggest in Australia, has given me plenty of thinking time in recent months. This is because the mobile telephone coverage is not what it ought to be and certainly not even what it once was.