Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring to the attention of the House a local constituency that is very close to my heart, the suburb of Lalor Park. It's where I grew up. It's where I went to school. There's a feeling of comfort when I round the bend off Vardys Road, go up Turner street, go on to Northcott Road, go past the Freeman Street shops and on to my electorate office in Seven Hills. Every site is a memory: Lalor Park Preschool, which I attended as a child and where my own daughter followed me decades later; St Bernadette's Church, the scene of nearly every significant event in my Catholic life; St Bernadette's Primary School, the scene of my formative childhood education; and the Lalor Park Community Centre, where I first joined the Labor Party 27 years ago.

Over the past few weeks, Lalor Park has featured in the media in relation to two tragic events both involving innocent children. Seven-year-old Julian Cadman was killed in the terror attack that occurred in Barcelona last month. His mother, Jumarie, was seriously injured. Julian was a year 2 pupil at St Bernadette's. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see those images of Julian's father arriving in the city where his young son was at the time still listed as missing, only to have his worst fears confirmed shortly afterwards.

It says something about a community when you see how they respond to such a tragedy; and the manner in which the Lalor Park community has rallied around Julian's family gives a true sense of its value. A special family day was recently held at Prodigy Martial Arts Australia, where Julian trained, in Seven Hills. There was a fundraiser where auctions raised over $50,000 for victims of the terror attack. I note that this was attended by some small-screen stars and Olympians who turned out for support. Julian was nicknamed the Karate Kid for his love of taekwondo. The event, organised by his instructor, Peter Vass, was so broadly supported. I would like to mention a few of the people who supported the event, including Jake Ryan and Sam Frost. In addition to that, there have been several fundraisers held for Julian's family—including the Wiggles, with two charity concerts being held this week. It's a small world. The Wiggles, like me, have a long connection to Lalor Park. In fact, the Field family grew up across the road from Julian's grandparents, and the six Field siblings also attended St Bernadette's in Lalor Park.

The other incident, which was also utterly tragic, was the death of a little girl a short time later from a shotgun wound in Lalor Park. Many news outlets carried reports of the commentary of the little girl's mother, who cried out, 'Not my baby girl, not my baby girl!' A short time after this incident, I was asked to comment on radio. I thought about it and decided I would—because I thought it was important to stress at this time that the local police needed to be able to do their job. It is a fact that nothing good comes from the death of an innocent child. Indeed, we do need to let the police do their job.

I was interested to note that, when I did this interview, the interviewer told me they had asked another prominent local representative to make some commentary on the issue, but they decided that they wouldn't because they feared that Lalor Park and Blacktown itself would be seen in a bad light. It is true that Lalor Park does have challenges and is undergoing significant change. There are a lot of demographic challenges, and some people are really doing it tough. But I don't think we can shy away from these issues. I think it's important to recognise that these tragedies are real, but they in themselves don't define us.

I wanted to say—and I did, and I still believe this—that the vast majority of local residents in Lalor Park and in Blacktown are good, law-abiding citizens. We are a community that has a deep spirit. You can see it from the Lalor Park community garden to the Common Groundz Community Cafe. You can see it in the Lalor Park Preschool fete, an annual event that was held over the weekend. As long as there are good people in our local area, as long as we have people who respond in the way that they have to these two absolute tragedies, we know that we are a community of which we can all be proud.