Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to provide the House with a Chisholm community update and reflect on some of the happenings in my electorate over the last few weeks. It has been an extremely busy time, so here are just a few of the highlights. Earlier this month, I was thrilled to be invited to the Eastern Community Legal Centre volunteers and partnerships dinner and help celebrate the centre's fantastic volunteers, an event that, due to COVID, had been placed on hold for a few years. I want to pay tribute to the following individuals for their outstanding service: Pamela McNulty, Mike Tomisich, Briana Jackman and Brendan McCarthy. It is important to reiterate that what makes these achievements so extraordinary is that all these individuals are volunteer community lawyers who do absolutely essential work across the eastern suburbs of Melbourne supporting our communities. I must make special mention to the wonderful Dilnaz Billmoria, who received the lifetime achievement award and whose extraordinary contribution to serving our community is to be commended.

In addition to attending this wonderful event I also hosted two community scam briefings at the Glen Waverly Bowls Club. My office was absolutely inundated with requests to attend these briefings, resulting in hundreds of people attending the sessions, where we all learned how to better protect ourselves against scammers, who unfortunately continue to target some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Of course, it has been great to see that, since hosting these briefings, the Albanese Labour government has announced $86.5 million package to combat scams and fraud, headlined by the establishment of the first national antiscam centre. We will look to hold more of these very valuable sessions across the electorate in the near future.

I also had the opportunity to attend Huntingtower School. I was invited by the principal, Andrew Houghton, and the year 7 students for their project based class on politics. It was a great opportunity to engage in terrific discussions, answer some really tough questions and engage with some really inquisitive minds. I was also invited to play the role of Speaker at Wattle Park Primary School and learn how difficult that task can be, with some wonderful students and some fantastic speeches debating some really important issues to the students.

I have also hosted mobile offices across the electorate and I really want to thank everyone who has taken time out of their very busy weekend to talk to me about issues that matter to them. One of the great privileges of being a representative is attending citizenship ceremonies, and I welcomed so many new citizens to our community in Chisholm.