Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to rise in this place and speak about some of the wonderful people in our electorates who contribute so much towards making our communities what they are today. In that vein, I would like to speak about the seniors in the electorate of Forde and the lifeblood that they are to our many community organisations. Many of them spend time as volunteers or are carers to family members and non-family members in the wider community. The fact is seniors make an enormous and valuable contribution to Australian society.

In my electorate of Forde, I often like to take the time to catch up with many of our seniors for a chat, to listen to their concerns and anecdotes but, more importantly, absorb their wisdom and, in many instances, enjoy their friendship. This year's Forde Seniors Expo had one of our best ever turnouts to date, with more than 500 seniors from around the electorate attending on the day. It was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with many of our local seniors face to face and discuss the issues most important to them. It also provided our seniors with a one-stop-shop for many of the local services, businesses and organisations that are available to them.

The Forde Seniors Expo is getting bigger and better every year, and I would like to thank all our sponsors and exhibitors for taking part as well as Canterbury College for hosting the event.

Special thanks to my electorate neighbour, the member for Fadden, the honourable Stuart Robert, for coming along to the Forde Seniors Expo as our guest speaker. He was warmly welcomed by our seniors in his role as Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Human Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac.

I also appreciated the minister taking some time to visit my electorate and meet with some of our local residents involved in various community organisations. We took the opportunity to first visit Canterbury College, where the school had used the funding from the Anzac Centenary grant to create a memorial garden. A great big thank you to Principal Donna Anderson for showing us around this fantastic addition to the school which I am sure will be used for commemoration services for many years to come. Next we visited Beenleigh RSL and caught up with the RSL executives and met a number of local veterans. It was a great opportunity to chat about the possible club upgrade for the RSL and enjoy a light lunch, and also to speak with the veterans about some of their concerns about issues that veterans are facing.

Our final stop was to the cenotaph at Charlies Crossing at Upper Coomera where the Rotary Club of Coomera Valley had used the Anzac Centenary grant to restore the monument. Stonemason Verner Nielson has done a tremendous job completing the restoration work, and I would like to thank him for his insights during our visit. Thank you also to all the members of the Rotary Club of Coomera Valley for this fantastic project, and I would like to especially mention Rob Stanford who supplied and installed the flagpoles around the cenotaph.

Over the past couple of weeks I have also had the opportunity to visit many of our over-50s communities in the electorate. I would like to thank Bob Phillips and all the seniors at Palm Lake Resort at Upper Coomera for sharing a great afternoon tea together. I enjoyed catching up and getting to know many of you.

It was a pleasure to come along to a morning tea at Jeta Gardens at Bethania and to be able to present the community with a new Australian flag. I thank Peter Hennessey and all the residents for their kind hospitality.

The friendly welcomes continued when I attended the morning tea at Palm Lake Resort, Waterford. I appreciated the opportunity to visit your community and get to know the issues affecting you. I look forward to dropping in again soon.

Finally, the Friday night fish and chips night at Regal Waters, Bethania, was a great evening of fun and conversation. Thank you to the residents for inviting me to your social evening and giving me the opportunity to chat and listen.

I appreciate greatly the hard work and contributions our seniors make to the electorate of Forde. They always welcome me into their communities with a friendly ear and plenty of advice.

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