Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning I had the great pleasure of attending a breakfast meeting with Anita Long and other delegates of the National Rural Women's Coalition. We had a lovely breakfast and meeting this morning with the Minister for Agriculture, Bridget McKenzie. It was non-partisan. It was convivial. We heard fantastic stories from around the country of incredible women doing incredible things in our regions—women who do suicide prevention and women who've come off drought affected farms to come here today and talk about what they're doing.

I had great pleasure in speaking with Anita Long, the Tasmanian delegate from my electorate. Anita lives in the town of Richmond, and she's a beekeeper and farmer. Two years ago, Anita founded a group called Tasmanian Junior Beekeepers. She runs monthly beekeeping sessions, because she knows that we need more young people going into beekeeping. It's a very important industry for agriculture. She's now teaching up to a hundred kids a month all the basics of beekeeping. These kids learn all about honey, beeswax and everything. She says that these kids are also running their own businesses. They're going to local markets and they're selling their own honey. They're getting a real leg-up in this incredibly important industry for agriculture.

So I'd like to say thank you to Anita for coming today. She follows hot on the heels of Summer Gwynne, another of my constituents who also lives in Richmond and who was last year's delegate. So Richmond's really punching above its weight through the National Rural Women's Coalition. Congratulations to all the women taking part.