Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Recently I've had the pleasure of attending one of the best community fundraisers I have ever been to, the 2021 Darling Downs LifeFlight Gala Ball. It was sponsored this year by the International Association of Drilling Contractors. After not being able to hold a fundraiser last year, this year we saw a record crowd, and thanks to the incredible work of the LifeFlight team they raised the record amount of $420,000 on the night in the room. A fantastic result.

A survivor of a terrible farm machinery action, Mr Tim Smith, spoke very movingly of his gratitude to LifeFlight. Their timely intervention no doubt saved his life. I'm sure it must have been at this stage that the cooks started cutting onions, because a few of us started to get a bit of a tear in our eyes.

In 2006 a group of local people got together to bring this service to Toowoomba. Today, it is the busiest base in Queensland and one of the busiest in Australia, having flown 650 critical missions in 2020. Clive Berghofer and the LifeFlight centre crews are ready to respond 24/7, 365 days a year, making us all safe—not just in the Toowoomba region but right across the Darling Downs and so much of south-western Queensland. Clive's been a major sponsor of LifeFlight since the establishment of the Toowoomba base in 2006 and, in 2017, donated $2 million to match the funds provided by this federal government to build the new LifeFlight base at Toowoomba airport.

My congratulations go to the chairman, Rob Borbidge, and to all of his LifeFlight team for the excellent evening they put on, and, of course, thanks to all the donors who support this fantastic charity.

See this speech in context