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

Volunteers come in all shapes and sizes, and none are larger than life by more than Layton Hodgetts OAM, who sadly died on 5 November. Layton was the founder of the Derwent Valley Concert Band back in 1993. He is much missed by the Derwent Valley community.

Volunteers come in all shapes and sizes. Over this pandemic, volunteers in my community have been keeping people fed through neighbourhood houses and community houses. They've been bringing together meals that have been prepared by people in their homes to keep fed people who haven't been able to afford those meals themselves. Over this summer, we are going to have volunteer firefighters from brigades across my electorate go all through—we hope and pray it's not necessary, but we know history tells us there will be bushfires this summer. This week in Tasmania, it's 30 degrees and above. We've got a lot of very, very long grass, and it's going to dry off this week. So we can only hope and pray that there won't be fires this week, but we can count on the volunteer firefighters across Lyons to do the right thing and be there for their communities. Volunteers are the lifeblood of my electorate. We have thousands of volunteers: firefighters, ambos, community workers, St John. They're out every weekend and every day of the week. I tip my hat to the volunteers of my electorate. Thank you. Have a merry Christmas and a happy and safe new year.