Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The karaoke cup fundraiser for the Crackin' Cancer Compassionate Fund was held at the Workers Club recently and was a great success. Over $23,000 was raised to financially help cancer in-patients at Lismore Base Hospital. There were over 800 people in attendance and it was a very good, fun night.

Well done to the contestants who included: Josh Dardengo and Corey Byrnes from Wal Murray at Alstonville; Elicia Mokodompt from the CBA; Chris Hayward from George and Fuhrmann, Bangalow; Kath Dower and David Sampson from Lismore base radiotherapy; Lisa Waugh from the Professionals in Lismore; Lyn Banks and Brittany Noble, from the Lismore hospital social workers; Josh Oliver from Ongmac Trading; Kris Liebke from the Lismore hospital chemo unit; Nancy Casson from Workforce Skills and Training; Janelle Pitman from Westpac Lismore; Georgia Mathews from Somerville Laundry Lomax; Tony Bazzana from WCA Chartered Accountants; Liam Bach and David Glendinning from Lismore hospital oncology; Jim Smith from Lismore Toyota; Aveley McCann and Crystal Suter from Thomas Noble & Russell; Natalie Van Der Klei from the Lismore hospital pharmacy; Eva Johnson and Phil Crick from Legal Aid New South Wales; Scout Symons and Kylie Baker from Summerland Credit Union; and Paul Rose from QBE Insurance. The night's winners were Eva and Phil, who put in a great rendition of Love ShackI think it was a Johnny Cash song, from memory—for the first one. There was the bravery and fun of two registered nurses from Lismore base, Kayla Firkin and Liz Parrington, who volunteered to be auctioned, and Summerland Credit Union was the successful bidder for these wonderful nurses. Very well done to the night's organisers—Patrick Fitz-Bugden, Mark Nash, Marshall Fittler and all of their team—for putting that event together.

Jack Leeson turns 10 in May. He is already an accomplished swimmer from Ulmarra Public School. He trains four mornings and two afternoons a week with coaches Jo Clare and Allan Patterson at the Grafton Pool. Earlier this year he was named Junior Boy Champion for the Ulmarra and Friends Carnival, the Small Schools Swimming Carnival in Grafton and the District PSSA Swimming Carnival. At the district event he broke records in the 200-metre individual medley, the 50-metre freestyle and the 50-metre backstroke. He then competed at the Mid North Coast PSSA Swimming Carnival in Coffs Harbour and the North Coast PSSA Swimming Carnival in Kempsey. Jack has also been competing in the New South Wales Speedo Sprint Series. At the Kempsey event he qualified to travel to Sydney, where he competed in all events, swimming a personal best in all disciplines that he competed in. He has broken nearly all his club's records this year. In his age category he now holds the records for the 50-metre freestyle, the 50-metre backstroke, the 50-metre butterfly, the 100-metre breaststroke, the 100-metre backstroke, the 100-metre butterfly and the 200-metre individual medley. Two of the records were previously held by the 1996-97 World Iron Man Champion, Nathan Meyer, and the 50-metre butterfly record was held by current club President David Moon. This record has stood for 43 years. Jack is certainly a star on the horizon, and I wish him every success.

I recently had the pleasure to hand out sporting champion awards in my local community. I would like to acknowledge Samuel Young for hockey. Sam for the first time represented Australia in a tour and test series against South Africa. Sam competed at the New South Wales under-18 boys state hockey championships in Sydney in May, and from that they picked a New South Wales schoolboys training squad. That squad then went into a week-long camp in June 2015 in Sydney. The New South Wales schoolboys team then travelled to Western Australia to compete in the School Sports Australia National Hockey Championships in August 2015.

Hugh Cameron represented Grafton in division 1 at the New South Wales State Open Men's Hockey Championships at Moorebank in June last year. He was selected as a shadow player for the New South Wales country team. After the national championships he was selected to play for the Australian men's under-21 country team.

Cody Ensby competed in campdrafting. This event is extremely prestigious. The ABCRA has thousands of members, but they take only the top 25 for the national titles. It is the Olympics of the campdrafting world. Congratulations, Cody.

James Bertalli currently holds a couple of Australian athletics records, in shotput and discus, for his classification. He hopes to one day represent Australia at the Olympics.

Elliott Speed successfully made the New South Wales under-13 indoor hockey team for the past two years. Selection for the New South Wales indoor team involved travelling to the Central Coast of New South Wales for three days to compete against other teams across New South Wales. There he attended training, once in December and once in January, prior to competing.

Jorden Elabbasi is in surf life saving. Jorden has competed in three competitions: the Country New South Wales Championships at South West Rocks, the Senior Branch Championships at Brunswick Heads and the New South Wales State Championships at Umina. Congratulations to Jorden.

Stephanie Hutton competed in the New South Wales rowing state championships. In an exciting progression, the team competed for the first time in the state championships, and Stephanie was entered in the individual, double and quad formats in the regatta. This regatta provides an outstanding opportunity for this crew from a small regional town to compete at the highest level within Australia. It is also very exciting for the coaches to see this young team ready to enter the higher standard of competition. Congratulations to Stephanie.

Alex Dahl, who is a third-year playing rep in netball, attended local carnivals in the lead-up to state age championships, which is a huge event where a lot of districts compete.

Jessica Roche is from the Evans Head Little Athletics Club and was selected to compete in the New South Wales state track and field championships in Sydney this year in the discus event. Jessica also competes in the shot put and has her eyes set on becoming a future Olympian.

James McPaul represented New South Wales athletics at the Australian Junior Youth Championships in Perth in March this year and has aspirations of gaining a place in the Australian under-20 relay team to compete overseas.

Ethan Mumford is a very talented 14-year-old rugby player who was chosen to represent the under-15 junior gold squad at the New South Wales junior gold competition in March this year in Armidale. He was selected previously for the Far North Coast and New South Wales Country rugby teams.

Jakira Tonielo was chosen to represent the North Coast Combined High Schools cricket team at the New South Wales Combined High Schools girls cricket championships in February this year in Bathurst. This is the third year Jakira has been selected in the team, and the championships are a stepping stone for future state selection.

Ella Cooke was selected to represent North East Tennis at the 2015 Queensland junior teams carnival in December last year in Brisbane. This was an invitation carnival and it was a great opportunity for Ella to compete against players she would not normally come up against in other tournaments.

Tom Brown, who has won this award before, has been selected to represent Hockey New South Wales at the Australian under-18 nationals in Tasmania in July this year. He was also selected this year in the Australian under-16 schoolboys hockey team to tour South Africa but has chosen to focus on the Australian nationals competition, with hopes of making the junior Australian team. Good luck, Tom!

Braden Nelson plays touch football and was selected to represent the Ballina Bull Sharks at the junior state cup in Port Macquarie this year. He plays in representative teams in rugby league and rugby union.

Mackenzie-Rose Cumming, with her pony, Moondancer, was selected to represent the New South Wales Pony Club at the Pony Club Queensland state equitation and showjumping championships, in the dressage section of the competition. Mackenzie has been in partnership with Moondancer since they were both five years old, and this was their first completion at state level.

Courtney Watt has been chosen to represent the Australian Clay Target Association (New South Wales) at the national trap championship. This sport is a tradition in her family, and Courtney is very excited to take part in the event in Wagga Wagga.

Gabby Venn plays netball and will represent Lismore and the district netball association at the New South Wales state age championships in Sydney in July. This is her third year playing representative netball.

I congratulate them all.

Kirstie Salgram, from Summerland Credit Union is off to Fiji in June to run a financial literacy program for the community there. She needed to raise $3,300 to help fund the program, which is run by the charitable foundation Credit Union Foundation Australia. Last week I joined about 10 other people in a 200-metre kayak race down the Wilson River in Lismore. Congratulations to all participants—Kirstie Salgram; the Lismore City Council general manager, Garry Murphy; Andrew Gordon; Darren Camidge; David Salgram; Stephanie Merk; Darren Foster; Adrian Salgram; and Brian, from Dawson Street Auto. Many people turned up to watch the event. Unfortunately, my kayak did not go as straight as I would have liked. Congratulations to Lyndal Norris, from Tursa, was the winner, and to Andrew Gordon— (Time expired)