David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

On 9 December last year, I attended the end-of-year concert and presentation day for JumboNote Music School in Narwee. It was a really impressive event. Some fantastic music was played. Some tremendously talented young vocal and musical artists were performing for the crowd on the day.

JumboNote has been active in the St George area for more than 10 years and provides music classes for around 450 music students. Students are taught performance skills, stage presence and a range of other important skills to pursue their interests in music. I would like to thank the founder and CEO of JumboNote, Darko Zoric, as well as the staff, for the very warm welcome that they gave me on the day, and I look forward to working with JumboNote in the future.

On 9 December I attended the Bankstown Vietnamese language school presentation day held at Bankstown Girls High School. The language school is part of the wider Vietnamese schools of New South Wales and offers classes to school-aged students of a Vietnamese background. This school encourages the kids to learn not only the language of Vietnam but also cultural traditions from Vietnamese history.

In my electorate of Banks more than 3,000 people come from a Vietnamese background, and the Bankstown Vietnamese Language School plays a really important role in supporting that community and ensuring that traditional Vietnamese culture and the language is strong in our area. It was great to be able to present awards to the kids for their diligence in learning Vietnamese during the year. I would like to thank Trong Hiep Ho, the coordinator of the school, for his invitation to me, and also acknowledge Thuat Nguyen, the head of the children's festival and a great man in our area, for being there on the day.

On 24 January I went down to the East Hills men's shed. The men's shed is going from strength to strength. The gentlemen involved down there are doing a great job in their location in the George's River National Park. They showed me a range of things they are building to help local community groups. The shed has grown very substantially after being set up just a couple of short years ago. I thank the president of the shed, Bob Bishop, and also the vice-president, Bryan Barrett. I was really pleased that we were able to secure a $6,000 grant for the shed through the federal Stronger Communities Program to assist with very important maintenance and capital works at the shed. Congratulations to everyone involved in the East Hills men's shed.

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