Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to inform the chamber of some wonderful communities that are getting on with the job in my electorate. I have an electorate of just on 8,000 square kilometres, ranging from Robina on the Gold Coast, where the electorate borders, through to the top of the Toowoomba Range.

I would like to take you on a little visual journey. The community I want to take you to is a little place called Rathdowney. It is about 13 kilometres off the New South Wales border as you come into Queensland on the Mount Lindesay Highway. Recently, the Rathdowney State School celebrated its centenary, and I was fortunate enough to be there. I would like to acknowledge the fantastic work undertaken by Principal van Bennekom; she did a fantastic job. The proceedings were hosted by Dave Coburn. In attendance were the state member, Jonny Krause, as well as Councillor Virginia West and newly elected Councillor Rick Stanfield from the Scenic Rim Regional Council. It was also well attended by P&C members. Past pupils came from as far away as Canberra for the centenary celebrations, and past teachers from as far away as Tasmania made the trip back to be at the school on the day.

Rathdowney is a small community, with only a couple of hundred people, so an event like this is important to the community. Rathdowney has a little pub, a little post office, a newsagency and shop, a butcher, a police station and a garage. In the middle of the community is the showground, and up the road a little bit is the school. They also have a fire station and a dance hall—a typical community dance hall where people engage with each other.

About 30 kilometres up the road is a place called Boonah. After finishing at the Rathdowney school centenary I went over to open the Boonah Show. The show societies throughout all of my electorate and communities play such an important role, not only from a community perspective but in engaging with business and the public sector. I would like to acknowledge the fantastic work undertaken by Jim Harvey, the president of the Boonah Show Society, along with his vice-presidents, Ray Maguire and Anthony Niebling, and treasurer, David Woolgar. The secretary there is Beth Hern, and Beth has two offsiders in Barbara McGovern and Gayle Van Der Veen.

One of the interesting things about the Boonah Show Society is that they have a really aggressive junior society coming on. In most of the other parts of the electorate the show societies are made up of retired, older people. I have kids between 18 and 25 that are really active in the junior show society and I would like to acknowledge them as well. Samantha Conochie is the president and Kodey Stoken and William Schultz are the vice-presidents. The secretaries are Tennile Schonknecht and Ricky Wilson, who is a boy. Congratulations to those young guys: keep it up.

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