Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Sunday I went down to St Ioannis Church in George Street to celebrate the Let's Go Greek Festival, once again. The wonderful Greek Orthodox community moved from its old church about four or five years ago now to an extraordinary new building in George Street, with a lot of land around it where they will build their new church. Every year since 2014 they've all come together to celebrate everything Greek. They do it with great 'Greekiness'. It is quite fabulous. I have only about 1,800 Greek Australians in my electorate and about 131 Cypriots, but somehow they turn that into between 25,000 and 30,000 people who come through the gates to celebrate all things Greek. It really is an amazing day.

In the last few years I have noticed there are more and more people coming along who clearly aren't Greek, and they are more than welcome. It has become a genuine broad community event that celebrates an important part of the history and culture and traditions of the wonderful Greek Australian community in Parramatta. I'd like to thank Kos Dimitriou, who is the president of the Greek Orthodox parish, and Father Dimitri and Father Nicholas, for their warm welcome every time. But, mostly, I would like to thank the volunteers, who do the most amazing things there, from moving their church to this wonderful new location to building their childcare centres, and having community events. They are an extraordinary bunch of people and they make the Let's Go Greek Festival an extraordinary success.