Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the 116th Kelmscott Agricultural Show, along with the state member for Armadale and the show's patron, Dr Tony Buti, and Barry Urban, Labor's candidate for Darling Range in the 2017 state election.

The Kelmscott Show was first proposed at a meeting of the Kelmscott Farmers & Fruit Growers Society in 1896, and the first show was held on 3 February 1897. I attended my first show as a young child in the early 1980s and have been mesmerised by its fireworks ever since. The Kelmscott Show went into a brief recess in the 1930s due to the Great Depression and was disbanded in 1935.

The show recommenced in February 1938. Since then the Kelmscott Show has remained an annual event, run by volunteers from the local Armadale-Kelmscott-Roleystone community. The Kelmscott Show is held at Rushton Park near the original Kelmscott town site on the banks of the Canning River. It is the second largest agricultural show in the metropolitan area, after the Perth Royal Show.

Many of the society's members and volunteers are descended from the original families of the local area. These families have shown over the generations an impressive commitment to their local community. Currently the Kelmscott Agricultural Society, of which I am a proud member, has more than 100 members who continue to demonstrate a high level of community spirit—some have served on the society's council for more than 50 years. To all those volunteers and community members involved in the 2016 Kelmscott Agricultural Show: well done and let's hope for better weather in 2017!