Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I recently had the privilege of attending the official opening of the new Penrose Village Hall. More than four years ago, the Morton bushfire swept through parts of the Southern Highlands, destroying 45 homes and many buildings. But out of tragedy can come great things. The community of Penrose is testament to this. With plenty of hard work, the new Penrose Hall was built in just 12 months. It's now fire resistant and can cater for 125 people. It's also used as an art space where local artists can display their works. This was evident at the exhibition held last month.

At the official opening of Penrose Village Hall, I was joined by the Governor-General of Australia, His Excellency, the Honourable David Hurley and Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, the New South Wales member for Goulburn, Wendy Tuckerman, and Penrose community members to mark the occasion. The project was made possible thanks to $1.7 million in funding through stage 2 of the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Package fund, which was co-funded by the former New South Wales coalition government. There were also other important contributions from the Goulburn Mulwaree Council and the Veolia Mulwaree Trust. I need to make special mention of the efforts of local resident Dr Jeff Freeman, who played a major role in getting the project up and running.

Another resident in my electorate who deserves special mention is a very talented young constituent who wrote the music for this year's Vivid Australia, the nation's largest arts festival. Twenty-year-old Bailey Pickles wrote his first piece of music at the age of three. He developed the unique gift of playing by ear, which means he can listen to a song and play it back without reading sheet music, and he did this for me with a number of wonderful songs. His incredible talents were recognised early, and he was selected for the Sydney Conservatorium's rising stars program at the age of 10. After graduating from Macarthur Anglican School, Bailey is now a third-year student at the conservatorium. He's amassed a huge following across social media and has collaborated with many of Australia's most successful artists, including Delta Goodrem, Morgan Evans and Jessica Mauboy, but he still maintains that wonderful authenticity of a young man from Camden. I recently had the opportunity to meet him at his home in Camden, where he showed me how he composed the 10-minute soundtrack for Vivid that was heard by millions of people. As I said, he played me some fantastic music, all by ear. No doubt the sky is the limit for this talented young man, who's now working with some of the UK's biggest artists. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about Bailey Pickles in the years to come.

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