Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was an honour to be invited to speak at a ceremony last week in my electorate of Spence. The ceremony was part of the unveiling and naming of a new facility at the James Martin Village, which is owned by Gawler Community Retirement Homes, who run many facilities within the local area. Many facilities are named after those who had a hand in the Gawler area and what it is today—famous identities from Governor Gawler himself to James Martin, who served in both chambers of the colonial state parliament and as the local mayor a number of times.

We thought that it would be appropriate to find a suitable person to name this new facility after. There was one candidate who was an extremely obvious contender for this honour, a living legend, the Hon. Dr Bruce Eastick, AM. Serving as chairman of the Gawler Community Retirement Homes from 1969 to 2018, Dr Eastick somehow also found time in his life to serve in state parliament, even becoming Speaker and Leader of the Opposition. He also served as the Mayor of Gawler a number of times. He is a man who learned the definition of 'give' but never bothered to learn the meaning of 'take'. I wish I could have been there, if not for ill health at the time. I'm glad Mayor Karen Redman also made the worthy suggestion during the ceremony to Dr Eastick. We are all glad he accepted. Well done, Bruce. You well and truly earned it, and I hope you have a fantastic 96th birthday next week too.

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