Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday, 31 August I held a bilingual Community Health Day at Freedom Plaza in Cabramatta. The event brought the community together to raise awareness of various health issues—in particular, lung and respiratory health and the importance of organ donation. Various government departments, including Fairfield City Council, Cabramatta Community Centre, Donate Life and the New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Service, were present at the event to provide health information which had been translated into various languages—in particular, Vietnamese for that particular community. I was very happy to have a number of my Vietnamese-speaking staff on hand to assist with community engagement.

I would like to thank Dr Lieu Vinh Binh and Dr Phan Giang Sang who were guest speakers at the event and provided information and health advice. These doctors are local heroes and I speak on behalf of a very grateful community in thanking them for their efforts over many years. My good friend Dr Lieu is a prominent Vietnamese doctor, businessman and philanthropist who has played a key role in organising several fundraising events and dinners for various Australian charities.

I have also had the opportunity of working closely with Dr Sang over the past year and a half on organ donation. When I first met Dr Sang early last year, I developed great admiration for his passion for improving community health. He has published two books about the facts, myths and benefits surrounding organ donation. Since then, Dr Sang and I have worked hard to increase awareness of organ donation among the Vietnamese community. As a concerned practitioner, Dr Sang has personally been responsible for collecting 95 organ donation registration forms this year alone. This is an amazing figure given that Australia is, unfortunately, ranked among the lowest in the developed world when it comes to organ donation. The Community Health Day was a great opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of our local hero Dr Sang. On behalf of the broader Australian community I would like to thank Dr Sang for all that he has done and the way that he has encouraged fellow health practitioners to follow his lead.

I also take this opportunity to thank Cheryl Bosler, from Fairfield City Council, who played a major role in facilitating this genuine community event designed to promote community health. My office worked very closely with Cheryl over the past month and, without Cheryl's help and advice, the day would not have been so successful. My thanks also go to Barbara Hillman of the Cabramatta Community Centre and Cabramatta Tobacco Project, who also contributed greatly with organising entertainment for the event. Dr Lieu presented information on 'loving our lungs', which tied in nicely with the message from the Cabramatta Tobacco Project encouraging people to quit smoking.

I also thank Bevan Wilson, from the New South Wales Multicultural Health Communication Service, and Angela Van Dyke, from Fairfield City Council, who also provided invaluable assistance for the event. My thanks also go to Cabramatta High School for providing fantastic entertainment and, in particular, for opening the event with very skilled lion dancing and dragon dancing routines. I thank the 20 students who performed in that opening and I acknowledge their teacher, Kim Keo, as well as Beth Goodwin, the very, very committed principal of Cabramatta High School. I also acknowledge the women from the Wilma drumming group for performing an excellent conclusion to the event. Their performance was exciting and colourful and they certainly enlivened the audience to participate in their act.

The Community Health Day was a great success and I am grateful to the many people who assisted me in organising the day. I also thank my staff for putting an inordinate amount of time into facilitating this event. In particular, I would like to thank Ms Tania Huynh, a very talented young Vietnamese Australian who works for me, for her hard work and dedication. Her efforts in facilitating this day were extraordinary.

It was fantastic to see so many people from the community attend this informative health event. Health is a very important issue to us all and I look forward to continuing to work with the local community to improve health outcomes.