Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right. I regained it in time to get here. I had been around a lot of smokers, which I had not been for a long time, and it affected my voice. The event went off really well. The state member was able to be there. I am only sorry I could not be there, but I wanted to talk about it.

This weekend in Lismore we have got the North Coast National, held at the showgrounds over a few days. It is celebrating its 125th anniversary and promises to be one of the biggest and the best. I want to thank all the people involved in it, particularly John Gibson.

A couple of other events happened a few months ago but it is my first opportunity to mention them. Casino is a beef capital of Australia and we have Casino Beef Week. It has  a wonderful committee, again volunteers, headed up by Stuart George, who is a councillor and Deputy Mayor of Richmond Valley Council. He did a really great job this year of making it successful. It is a very important industry in our area. We have a big processing centre there, the Northern Meat Cooperative. It has nearly a thousand employees and that is a big employer in a small but growing and thriving country town. Casino is also host to Primex, which is regional Australia’s premier primary industry exhibition. It has the largest agricultural machinery and commercial sectors that cater for almost every aspect of primary industry. That is a wonderful event which goes over a whole week. It was very successful. I was able to have a stall there along with other people, meet up with a lot of friends and make new friends.

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