Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

On Saturday, I will be joining the wonderful women from the United Indian Association at their International Women's Day celebration for this year. I have attended for a few years in a row now and it is always a great event. This Saturday, it is called the beyondblue Bash, which means we will all be out wearing our blue saris. I do happen to have one—I think I have three and I will certainly be wearing one of them this Saturday and joining these wonderful women.

I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of the extraordinary women who have worked so hard to support women in the Subcontinent community to raise the profile of issues such as domestic violence and breast cancer, and the work they are doing this year on the theme of closing the economic gender gap. I particularly acknowledge the wonderful work of Sue Advani—Sue, for those of us who know her, is an extraordinary woman and is tireless in her efforts working for her community—and Varsha Tembe as well. Then there are Aboorva Sundar, Dr Nagamma Prakash, Dr Anju Agarwal, Mala Chandani, Honey Rupani and Shalini Ponnaiya. These are extraordinary women who do a great job and I am really looking forward to joining them in their blue saris on Saturday. We will look fabulous and we will be doing fabulous work.

Then I am going to leave my sari on and head off to join the Tamils for their silver jubilee celebration of the Catholic Association of Sydney Tamils—so it will be a full-on sari day, with one event in the morning and two more in the afternoon and evening. The Catholic Association of Sydney Tamils was founded way back in 1991, in the Archdiocese of Sydney with the Reverend Father John Alt at Meadowbank. But the organisation grew and, naturally, they relocated to the Diocese of Parramatta—most things come to Parramatta eventually! They did that in the nineties and they remain there today. They were found with the objective of fostering and promoting spiritual growth, friendship and understanding among Tamil Catholics residing in Sydney, and they continue to do that. They gather at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Westmead to celebrate holy Mass in Tamil on the last Sunday of every month. Throughout the electorate of Parramatta, Deputy Speaker, you will find churches that celebrate Mass in different languages, and this one is incredibly important for our Catholic Tamil community. They make a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy at Penrose Park, Berrima annually during the season of Lent. They organise a Christmas concert in December each year where they sing carols in both Tamil and English and stage gospel dramas in Tamil. Again, this is a great opportunity for children who are learning the language of their parents and grandparents, as well as English, to celebrate Christmas in the language of their grandparents. Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise these important events.

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