Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lloyd Rees, one of our best-known and most prominent artists, said of Sydney Harbour: 'The first glimpse, a picture of a circular frame, opal blue water, a band of golden sand, another of silver-green trees; above them a skyline of coral pink, shimmering against the limpid air. In that first long look Sydney cast her spell and it remains with me ever since.'

Lloyd Rees is one of the many who love Sydney Harbour, Manly Beach and Bondi Beach. One of the most exciting things I can report to this place in some time is that a walk will soon be launched that will take walkers all the way from Manly Beach to Bondi Beach around the ring of Sydney Harbour. People will pass our beautiful Sydney Harbour National Park. They will pass significant Aboriginal heritage sites between Fisher Bay and Sandy Bay and Grotto Point, where there are a large number of Aboriginal engravings, and Reef Beach, which is an ancestral reburial and rock art site. Walkers will pass Mrs Macquarie's Chair, an 1810 convict carved bench where I love to go myself. They will walk through Camp Cove, the first landing place of Captain Arthur Philip in 1788. And they will pass the mouth of the harbour, passing Vaucluse House and gardens, Elizabeth Bay House, Strickland House, which Tom Uren campaigned so hard for, and Curlew Camp, where artists lived and worked, including Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts. They will pass May Gibbs' Nutcote, the home of the children's author and illustrator, which is now a museum. Of course they will pass beautiful Taronga Zoo.

This will become one of the world's great walks. It will attract tourists from around the globe to our beautiful Sydney Harbour. They will be able to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, past the Sydney Opera House and through our botanical gardens. This will put walking on the map for that group of international tourists who love to visit a place and see it in the best possible way—on foot.

This walk would not have happened if it weren't for John Faulkner, my former colleague in this place, and Lachlan Harris, the driving forces behind this walk. But of course it has also required the support of six councils—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:15 to 16 :28

The 80-kilometre Bondi to Manly walk will be launched on 8 December this year. It will be an exciting addition to our tourism offering. I congratulate all of those involved in this magnificent effort—14 partnering landholders from three levels of government. What a great project!