Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to give voice to an event that we held last week in the electorate of Spence, in partnership with the City of Playford: Defence Industry Day. This is the second year that we've held this event in my electorate, and it gives voice to a large manufacturing operation that's going on in and around the area. Thankfully, we had quite a large contingent of primes present at that event and many up-and-coming manufacturers. We had people who were part of our Edinburgh Industry Alliance, an event I was lucky enough to speak at a few months earlier back in August.

I'm extremely thankful that we had the Assistant Minister for Defence and Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Matt Thistlethwaite, as our keynote speaker at that event. It provided an opportunity for us as a government to deliver a clear message to the manufacturing industry within the defence space in Spence and across Australia that the Labor government supports the defence industry and supports manufacturing within the defence industry.

With over 260 attendees, the event was well attended, with a lot of networking going on. I'd also like to speak about the opportunity the assistant minister had to have firsthand experience of three of our local manufacturers, Sonnex, XTEK and Levett Engineering, at the old home of Holden's General Motors. This was a great opportunity to see firsthand what the great people of Spence are capable of doing and the contracts that they are contributing towards. I feel that this was a fantastic day. It was a fantastic opportunity for the assistant minister to get to know a bit more about my electorate and to get to know my local mayor in the area, Mayor Glenn Docherty, who had recently been re-elected for a fourth term. Thank you to Minister Thistlethwaite for coming down.

Lastly, I'd like to quickly touch on another event I held earlier on the week, on Monday, which ties into this. That was our third veterans wellbeing roundtable for the new veterans hub going into the electorate of Spence, an extremely well-attended event. It's something that's very close to my heart as a veteran. I very much appreciated all those who attended and provided valuable contributions throughout the day.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.