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

I want to provide the House with some updates on local events and achievements in Chisholm. This week it was really wonderful to meet Professor Chris Greening at Parliament House and congratulate him on being awarded the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in the 2023 Prime Minister's Prizes for Science. Professor Greening has made a world-first discovery that microbes live on air, which has remarkable implications for the environment, climate change and infectious diseases. His research has redefined life as we know it. His discoveries around pathogens are also helping to improve health outcomes for communities in the Asia-Pacific region by providing a better understanding of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery. Professor Greening lives and works locally in my electorate of Chisholm and works at Monash University within the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. When we met, we had a thoroughly engaging conversation about his research and his passion for innovation and translating research into tangible outcomes. Congratulations to Professor Greening on this incredible discovery and well-deserved award.

I also recently held a local arts round table with Special Envoy for the Arts Susan Templeman at the beautiful Museum of Australian Photography in Wheelers Hill. We hosted attendees from across the electorate, including artist, performers, writers, researchers, creatives, curators and representatives from the two local councils in my electorate, Whitehorse and Monash. We received insightful feedback about our cultural policy and discussed the issues impacting artists in Chisholm. These issues included equity in funding, barriers to completing grant applications, and the challenges of insecure work, which so many in the industry face.

I'm really proud of our arts community in Chisholm. We have such a vibrant arts community in Chisholm, and I look forward to continuing to work hard to foster the creative forces in my electorate. I think it is so important that in our cultural policy we're ensuring that communities in all parts of Australia, including eastern and south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne such as the ones that I represent, are able to benefit from the vision that our government has. This is the first cultural policy this country has seen in over a decade now, and it's very exciting to be a part of assisting the community to understand exactly what our vision is all about. I know there's lots of work to do to renew the arts sector in this country, and I'm really pleased that our government is not wasting a day. I will look forward to working with my community on arts policy in the future.