START: 1:31pm
MICHAEL McCORMACK:
Thank you very much, Cam (Harmer), and I understand you’re the unofficial Mayor of Khancoban. It was really nice to hear Cam speak so respectfully and highly of Snowy Valleys Council, because not everybody always speaks highly and appropriately about their councils. And he acknowledged the work that Julia Ham, Mayor, and Councillor Grant Hardwick do, and other councillors as well, but Khancoban is a very pretty spot, and we’ve heard Uncle Craig give the Welcome to the Country, and it is a beautiful country, thank you, Uncle Craig. But to also my friend, Justin Clancy, the Member for Albury. We all know, because we’re here, celebrating this camaraderie, this fine food. There are partnerships, right in this room, there’s partnerships that want to see and make Khancoban and be the best it can be, and the Sculpture Trail, what a fantastic infusion that has made to this local community, because it not only makes it more liveable and lovable, it brings people to town. It brings people to town, as Julia said, to spend money. It brings people to town to stay in town, and to tell others when they go away, visit Khancoban and visit the Snowy Valleys, and I think it’s appropriate that the two sculptures today, have the names Horizons and Passages, because if you think about what that means to this community, there have been passages in time where this community has had to be its resilient self, and like no other and it’s survived, it’s hopefully, in the future and right now, thriving, and we need to make sure that that is so. And of course, Horizons, we all look to the future, we all look to see what is coming about, and I think our best days are ahead of us, as a community, as a state, and as a country. And we all need to try to help make that possible.
Just a shout out to Dean Lynch, I know he was mentioned before, but the work that he does to get communities prospering, to make sure that whatever he does, whatever he puts his hand to, along with Vicki Sproule; who’s obviously the Secretary of the Khancoban United Volunteers Association, it’s volunteering efforts, it’s the partnerships that we make with corporations, it’s you people in this room who make these country communities very, very special indeed, and we need to continue to do this, and to have this great Long Lunch, and I’ll stop talking now, because I hope you can smell the wafting of that beautiful food coming from the room, and I think Justin’s up next, and I know he won’t talk for long, so we’ll get in and enjoy that food. Thank you very much.
ENDS: 1:34pm