Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, I also congratulate you on your elevation to this grand high office. I believe you must be the first government Second Deputy Speaker. That is a big achievement in itself, so well done on that. In paying tribute to your great success story of a successful migrant family, I want to talk about another success story in my electorate in the great fabric of migration to Australia. Taekwondo World in my electorate celebrated its 25th anniversary on the weekend. Grandmaster In Cheol Yoo emigrated in 1987 from Korea and started Taekwondo World in my electorate. Sometimes when you grow up in a community and are integrated in it you think you know everything about it, but when I turned up to Taekwondo World for the first time and saw about 1,000 people participating in taekwondo I learnt that my electorate is home to the biggest taekwondo club in Australia today.

Grandmaster Yoo was responsible for the coordination of the taekwondo events at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. He serves as the Chairman of Sports Taekwondo Australia and as Vice-President of the Korea Taekwondo Association of Australia and is a member of Kukkiwon World Taekwondo Headquarter International Advisory Committee.

This is a remarkable Australian success story too. Seeing all those families participating—the young children with their parents learning self-discipline, concentration, a martial art and fitness on the weekend—was quite inspiring. Grandmaster Yoo is ably assisted by 18 highly skilled taekwondo masters. I congratulate him, his wife and his team for being a valued part of our Mitchell community. They often participate in displays at our annual Hills Orange Blossom Festival and in open air taekwondo lessons around our community. It is certainly a great business that trains and develops bonds between parents and children and develops great people in a martial art.

I also did a martial art when I was a young person. It certainly benefited me. I can understand the benefit gained by many young people in their discipline, training and fitness. After 25 years of great success—this club has been awarded club of the year in Australia for around a decade in the 2000s; almost every year this club achieves that pinnacle within Australia—we recognise Grandmaster In Cheol Yoo, his masters and all the parents and families that participate in this great sport and also this great success story of yet another migrant adding to the great fabric of Australian success. They come from all over the world. There is a great relationship between Australia and Korea in terms of trade and diplomacy, but there are also many hidden success stories with individual migrants coming to this country, establishing a great life, building a great business and passing on a value-added cultural asset to our country.

See this speech in context