Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you've lived in Port Macquarie for more than five seconds, you're highly likely to have met our wonderful Janette Hyde. This tenacious lady is involved in some way in more community and local business projects than I could possibly mention in 90 seconds, but Janette's passion is tourism to the greater Port Macquarie region. Every business on the Mid North Coast, large and small, is some way impacted by our annual tourist number, and having moving there in 1975 and starting her own takeaway deli at the time, Janette has experienced that firsthand. Since arriving in town, however, Janette has set out to establish or grow major events in the area while helping to promote our wonderful family-owned and -run businesses, and as the town has grown from 10,000 when she first arrived to over 50,000 now, we see her dedication and what that has resulted in today.

From her 34 years of involvement as a community facilitator of New South Wales touch football, being a driving force in the chamber of commerce for close to 20 years, to being the President of the Greater Port Macquarie Tourism Association for the past decade, Janette has lived and breathed her beloved Port Macquarie. So the recent bestowment of those three letters—OAM—to her name is a fitting and well-deserved addition to that plethora of titles. Congratulations, Janette. Well done. We love you.