David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From 25 September to 1 October, we have Men's Shed Week around Australia, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge the great work of Men's Shed in my electorate. We have three sheds in the region: the East Hills Men's Shed; the Mortdale Men's Shed, which actually meets at Riverwoood; and the St George Men's Shed, which used to be at Penshurst and now is at Carss Park—a little out of my electorate, but attended by many gentlemen from my electorate.

Men's Sheds is a fantastic organisation, providing a place for men to come together to do something practical to benefit the community. Many of the sheds provide the goods and things that they have made to local schools and other community groups, and they are a very valued organisation in our area. I would like to thank Bob Bishop of the East Hills Men's Shed, Pat Murray and all the team from the St George Men's Shed, and Greg Moore and all the other gentlemen at the Mortdale Men's Shed for all their contributions to our area.

On 18 July, I visited the Hulusi Folk Instrument Group at Kempt Field in Allawah. They perform traditional Chinese folk dance across Sydney, and were previously asked to perform at New South Wales Parliament House. It was great to see this open air performance by around 25 musicians, who come together in the park every week to play their traditional Chinese folk music. I would like to thank the group's coordinator, May Xi, for welcoming me to visit the group, and I look forward to the group's upcoming performance at my moon festival celebration, to be held in October. Thank you to everyone who is involved in the group.

On 8 September, I visited the Mortdale-Oatley Baptist Church to visit the craft group there and also to see the completed upgrades to the kitchen and cafe facilities at the church. We have a very strong and active Baptist community in the Banks electorate, and Mortdale-Oatley is one of the largest churches in the region. It was good to speak with members of the craft group, who were completing a range of knitting and sewing activities and a whole range of other activities as well. The new cafe facility is very impressive, and I am told that the coffee is particularly good as well. The kitchen also looks fantastic and is very useful in helping the church to service the community for those larger community events that are often held in the community hall and surrounding areas. The church provides a range of support to our community, including language support, parent support and programs for older members of the community. Thank you very much to Mortdale-Oatley Baptist Church.