Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

YWAM Medical Ships Australia do an incredible job providing medical services in highly challenging, remote areas of Papua New Guinea. My beautiful wife, Yolonde, is the first Cairns community ambassador for YWAM. Her role is to raise awareness, recruit volunteers and help strengthen sister-city relationships.

Last year Yolonde volunteered on board the MV YWAMPNG and was embedded with the optometry team. She saw firsthand the desperate need for sunglasses and prescription glasses to be distributed to the Papua New Guinean people. Yolonde vowed that her next campaign would be to collect unwanted pairs of glasses, which she will hand over to YWAM when the ship docks in Cairns next month. She is being helped by Cairns youth ambassador for YWAM Morgan Elliston. They've already collected more than 1,000 pairs of glasses towards their target of 5,000. I'd like to give a shout-out to Minister Kelly O'Dwyer, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, whose office has given us about 300 or 400 pairs of glasses so far.

I reckon a disproportionate number of us pollies wear glasses due to too many hours spent reading documents and computer screens—and, I hate to say it, in my case, age. I urge you all to have a look in your cupboards and drawers and dig out any old pairs of glasses you might have. You can drop them off to my office, or post them through to 200 Mulgrave Road, Cairns, by 18 July. It would be a great opportunity to help the Papua New Guinean people see a much brighter future. It really makes a huge difference for this community, and I appeal to my colleagues to see what they can do to help— (Time expired)