Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The electorate of Wright is just under 8,000 square kilometres. As you drive into Queensland, the country on the left-hand side of the highway is one of my borders. The New South Wales-Queensland border is one, and the top of the Toowoomba range escarpment is the other border. It's quite a large and diverse electorate. It's difficult at times to get around the whole lot of it. Often with the road infrastructure, you've actually got to leave the electorate to get into other parts of it. But there are a few things that unite my electorate, and the show circuit is definitely one of them.

I'd like to firstly congratulate the Boonah Show for their recent success of a show. With over 8,000 patrons coming through the gates, it was indeed a spectacle. At the Boonah Showgrounds, they have the new Teviot Park upgrade facility, which is an equestrian undercover arena which is going to bring prosperity. That asset, which we funded in the last government, will stand for 100 years.

I'd like to encourage all in the electorate to consider attending both the Kalbar and Mudgeeraba shows this weekend. They're over a hundred kilometres apart, but both will be attended with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm. I'll take this opportunity to say that you can tell the vibrancy of a community by the way its show is conducted. Both Mudgeeraba and Kalbar are shows that are extremely well attended, especially for their night activities. There are such a large number of dedicated volunteer hours that go into these shows. I want to take the opportunity today to acknowledge, without naming individual personalities, the people who contribute to regional shows.

With the Queensland school holidays coming up can I say, as a former road safety minister: no-one intends to leave their destination and not to get home safely. I am always perplexed when I'm told by our first responders, who are onsite, that most accidents are avoidable. So don't drink and drive. They tell me they're surprised at how many accidents could have been avoided if people had just put their seatbelt on or chosen not to be distracted by their phone or something in the car. Please: do our community a favour and get yourself and your family home safe, because the consequences of you not being there are terrible.

With these school holidays approaching I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge our school teachers in our state primary and secondary schools, private and public. They do an enormous job. As we see the breakdown of the family unit and schools being asked to take on more and more responsibility, I acknowledge what they do and wish everyone a safe holiday.