Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members in this place represent a broad spectrum of community involvement, with many different backgrounds represented. The diversity of our communities is often understated. However, last Saturday, when I participated in McHappy Day festivities, I was reminded of the community spirit in my electorate of Dobell. McHappy Day does a great job in raising funds for Ronald McDonald House charities.

On the Central Coast, Gosford Hospital hosts the Ronald McDonald Family Room. Families who have a child as a patient in the hospital are welcome to use this facility. As I mentioned, McHappy Day does a great job in raising funds for this vital service. I was pleased to see the huge turnout at the McDonalds restaurants that I attended. First stop for the day was the Wadalba McDonalds. What a turnout! I was impressed by the number of people donating to the charity as well as the number of community groups. The most noticeable group was the Wadalba RFS, with their fire truck parked out the front. The brigade had kids lined up to learn about bushfire safety—and also to have a go with the fire hose. The Northlakes Toukley Rotary team was there in numbers and this day provided Rotary with an opportunity to raise funds for their many causes, with raffle tickets sold by the volunteers. As the day progressed, I moved to Wyong McDonalds and met representatives from the Central Coast Girl Guides, who were selling their always popular biscuits. Yet again there was a huge turnout from all walks of life. A number of local businesses turned out to support the day, as well as other sporting and community groups.

The point in drawing attention to McHappy Day in my electorate is to demonstrate how beneficial an organisation like McDonalds is to our community. On McHappy Day I was able to spend some time with Raylee McLeod, who is licensee of multiple McDonalds restaurants across the Central Coast. Raylee employs approximately 1,000 young people across the region, some as young as 14 years of age. An area of significance for me in my role as a member of parliament is the ongoing encouragement of our young people to engage in the workforce. Here we have an example of a local business owner employing hundreds of young people, ensuring that they have a taste of working life.

In Dobell, there are approximately 10,000 young people aged 14 to 18 years. I am sure that most of them would greatly benefit from part-time employment while they are still at school. While commending Raylee for everything she does youth employment in our community, she provided me with the following quote:

Employing people from the age of 14 and a half to 50 years of age means we have a diverse workforce. Employees with a disability, others with difficult home lives all play an integral role in the success of our business. Flexibility in employing young people on varied school and extra-curricular activities has meant we can employ more.

The effort undertaken by the community on McHappy day is just the tip of the iceberg when we look at how much people like Raylee and her team do for the young people in our community. I would like to thank all those volunteers across organisations involved in McHappy and especially thank Raylee and her team.