Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Congratulations on your ascension, Deputy Speaker Scrymgour. It's a pleasure, in your first duty today, to tell you about an event I hosted on the weekend: the inaugural Hasluck Volunteer Awards, attended by over 200 community members. It was an amazing event where we celebrated the wonderful work being done by individuals across the community—so talented and dedicated. Volunteering is the lifeblood of all our communities. It was wonderful and an honour to acknowledge the work of all the fine citizens who were nominated. Our awards covered a few different categories—youth and education, environment, emergency services, sport, and community and multicultural. We also presented a lifetime achievement award and the Hasluck volunteer of the year award.

Our youth and education award winner was Claire Cowan, a volunteer speech pathologist. Claire is retired yet provides a comprehensive literacy report for young people re-engaging in their education at Swan City Youth Service. Our environment award winner was Rob Fyfe, who has given over 20 years of service to the work of Trillion Trees Australia, planting trees across the state. Our emergency services award winner was Aaron Thredgold, the Mount Helena Voluntary Bush Fire Brigade captain, who has served since 2012 in a number of roles and has faced many difficult fires both local and further afield. Our sports award winner was Rikita Ryder, from the Koongamia Football Club. Registrar, administrator, canteen manager, first aider and sports trainer—she has served that club with single-minded dedication since she was 14 years of age. Our community and multicultural award winner was Aliaa Alzayadi, Alnoor Community Language Inc president and founder of a school to help children from all backgrounds to learn to read, write and speak in the Arabic language. Our lifetime achievement award went to Paul Crouchley, deputy team leader from Mundaring SES, who started volunteering with St John's Ambulance in 1978 and with the SES in 1986. The difficult-to-determine Hasluck volunteer of the year award went to Michelle Bailey, our administrator of the Perth Hills online fire chat. Michelle advises, helps, supports and educates the community throughout the year but particularly during fire season, keeping some 14,000 online chat members informed and ultimately safer.

I thank all who came together to make the event such an amazing success, particularly Tanya Richardson, Mayor of Swan; Margaret Thomas, Mayor of Kalamunda; and Page McNeil, President of the Shire of Mundaring. I acknowledge the Hon. Michelle Roberts, the member for Midland and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, for her presence, and the Deputy President of the Shire of Mundaring, Trish Cook, who represented the member for Swan Hills, Jess Shaw. I thank all the sponsors and donors who made it a particularly joyous occasion, particularly Oakover Grounds, Bailey Brewing, Pinelli Estate, Mandoon Estate and the Abbey Winery.