Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to stand here and speak on the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's address to open the new parliament after the last election. I will start by saying it is always a privilege for any person in these chambers to represent their community. I certainly feel that way, and every day I have gratitude for the fact that my community gave me the honour of representing us down in this place. I would certainly say that I—like many other people—regard myself, very much, first and foremost, as a representative of my community and a representative of my community's values and beliefs, and, very much secondly, a member of a political party. That is how I treat my position and will always do so.

After the 2013 election, I gave a bird's-eye tour of the electorate of Page for people who were not familiar with the geography of it. I took us on a full bird's-eye view, flying from north to south and east to west. I will not do that today but I thought it was a very picturesque and very colourful tour. Again, there have been some changes to the boundaries between those two elections, and I would certainly like to acknowledge that the northern part of my electorate does touch on the Queensland border. I did say, in my first address to this place, that if you were on the Queensland-New South Wales border and were flying south over Page, that that would be the right way to be flying. My Queensland friends did not seem to agree with that.

The community of Woodenbong is one of the first communities you would come to. I was there last week. Wonderful cattle grazing country there, Deputy Speaker Buchholz. Have you ever been up there? I encourage you to come. It is a beautiful part of the country. If you are to fly south from Woodenbong, you would come to places like Kyogle—a beautiful community. If you veered west there, you would be flying towards Lismore. Lismore is probably the critical mass of the region. It has the local base hospital, a lot of education facilities and is one of the biggest places in the area.

With the redistribution, I was fortunate enough to take in some of the northern villages around Lismore that were not previously in Page like Nimbin. You would have heard of Nimbin, Deputy Speaker. It has been a forerunner in many things like permaculture. It was obviously the home of the Aquarius Festival back in the early seventies. I go out there, and it is always an interesting time when I am in Nimbin—a very colourful community. In the coastal east, I used to represent Ballina. I am very disappointed that Ballina got taken out of the electorate. I now come into the coast just south of Ballina.

If you go down the coast, you take in places like Evans Head. The further south you go you run into the wonderful mighty Clarence River. Yamba and Iluca are on the mouth of the Clarence river. The boundary used to stop there. I now have the great fortune of continuing south and taking the northern beaches of Coffs Harbour and places like Woolgoolga, Corindi, Red Rock, Sandy Beach and right down to Sapphire Beach as the most southern place. That is certainly a beautiful part of the world. There is not only wonderful industry and great tourism industry in that part of the world but also a thriving blueberry industry. Around the Coffs region was historically a banana growing area. It has a wonderful representation of the Sikh community. The Sikhs settled in that part of the world many decades ago and there is a very healthy and vibrant Sikh community, which adds a lot to the community down there. They are very active now in the blueberry industry. A lot of them have switched from bananas. That is a new area, but also all the communities in between. The whole of the Clarence Valley Council area is within Page and, obviously, the major centre of Grafton. Centres like Maclean as well have come into the electorate.

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