Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia Day is a wonderful day to celebrate, to commemorate and to reflect on our history—the great times, the achievements and, of course, the very dark times. I want to put on record my very strong support for Australia Day being 26 January and express my disappointment with the campaign, particularly from the Greens, to change the date.

Also, I wish to make it very clear, after chairing an inquiry into family violence law reform, that it's very disappointing that, after many weeks of calling on the Greens to support the bipartisan recommendations which were made, we've still not had any strong support at all from the Greens for the very significant efforts that we've made to implement very strong reform, building on the significant reforms that have already been introduced by the Turnbull government.

Australia Day is also a great day to celebrate great Australians. I want to put on record my congratulations to Robert Charles, Barrie Provan, Paul Hemming, Lyn Harris, Pat Collins, Roger Allen, Peter Mansfield, Jan Kinloch and Therese McKenney, all of whom received Australia Day honours. Congratulations particularly to Robert Charles, my Corangamite FEC chairman for the last eight years, a wonderful Australian. He made such a great contribution to the Army Reserve, Fort Queenscliff and Lifeline. Congratulations to Robert. (Time expired)

See this speech in context