Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak about the Hanson Swan Business Awards that were held on Saturday night in my electorate of Hasluck. These awards recognise business excellence and are conducted by the Swan Chamber of Commerce. The Swan Chamber of Commerce have great goals. Their goals are:

... to build a better business environment for our members and to transform our region into a premier choice for business operators.

Their mission is:

To provide a business friendly environment, which is committed to allowing all local businesses the opportunity to flourish.

There is no doubt that in the time I have been associated with the Swan Chamber of Commerce they have been one of the most dynamic and effective business groups I have been involved with. I would like to congratulate their president, Mr Peter McDowell, and their executive director, Sandra Wallis, for their great effort. It was well and truly on display on Saturday night for the Hanson Swan Business Awards held at the Sandalford Winery.

The Sandalford Winery is a very historic winery, founded in 1840, and is located on the banks of the Swan River in my electorate of Hasluck, an easy 25 minutes from the CBD. They certainly produce quality wines and have a great reputation for those wines. They sell those wines in some 35 countries across the world. It is not surprising that they were winners on Saturday night. The Sandalford Winery won the Swan Business of the Year category of the Hanson Swan Business Awards, recognising the excellence that they have provided in the area and across the country for a long period of time. This is the third time they have won. They won the award in 2004, 2006 and 2007.

The Sandalford Winery were also the winners—and this is not surprising—of the Quality Customer Service category, which was sponsored by our local newspaper, the Echo. It is no doubt as a result of the great efforts by Peter and Garry Prendiville, Grant Brinklow, their winning team, and the use of their world-class facilities that they have been so successful in these prestigious awards. There is no doubt that Sandalford Winery make a huge contribution to the Swan Valley, and the Swan and Midland regions, with respect to employment, attracting tourism and helping to support the economy in the area. The award for Business of the Year is the top award in this program, which is run by the Swan Chamber of Commerce and strongly sponsored by a number of businesses in the area—the primary sponsor is Hanson Construction Materials.

On that night, I had the pleasure of sitting next to the Businessperson of the Year. The gentleman who received the Businessperson of the Year award for 2007 was Mr Kim Gascoigne of Gascoigne Furniture—a business that has been operating in Perth since 1975. They moved to Midvale, in the electorate of Hasluck, in about 1984. They manufacture a very fine range of furniture, including chesterfields. It is very interesting to see that some of the chesterfields in the Prime Minister’s suite come from Gascoigne Furniture in my electorate, in Midvale in Western Australia.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could call it that. It is certainly worth advertising. It is quality furniture. In addition to that, they have operations in Asia and Europe. So they not only employ 60 people in my electorate in their factory at Midvale but also employ a lot of people in Asia and Europe to produce great products. I can highly commend it. Mr Gascoigne has won this award before, in the mid-1990s. Not only that, he makes a fantastic contribution to local Indigenous youth, and that is very much appreciated and highly regarded in the area. There were other winners on the night. There were 12 different awards, including Best Home Based Business, sponsored by the Small Business Development Corporation and won by Quick Ideas; Best New Business, sponsored by the City of Swan, was Fit Chips; Best Non-Retail Business, sponsored by the Stefanelli Group of Companies, was FX Digital; Contribution to Youth Training—(Time expired)