Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak about the remarkable community spirit in Bradfield, the electorate that I've been privileged to represent in this place for 15 years. Last Saturday, as one manifestation of that community spirit, the Killara Rural Fire Service station opened. This has been the culmination of many years of work and planning to establish the new Killara Rural Fire Brigade in 2017 and to build this magnificent new station in Koola Avenue in East Killara opposite Killara High School. I particularly congratulate deputy captain and brigade president Stuart Clark, who has worked for many years to achieve this outcome, as well as brigade captain Andrew Wilson and all of the volunteers who serve in the NSW Rural Fire Service, not just in the Killara brigade but locally in the Ku-ring-gai brigade and of course across New South Wales and Australia.

Late last year, I held my annual Bradfield community Christmas drinks, and we recognised three outstanding local organisations and asked each of them to brief the assembled group of over 100 people on the great work that they do. We heard from Liz Lovell of Lifeline Harbour to Hawkesbury. There's a very big facility that they have in Gordon, in the electorate of Bradfield, and, as the name suggests, they serve people from the harbour up to the Hawkesbury River and beyond, including through the lots of counsellors who work on the enormously valuable Lifeline telephone counselling service. I've heard from many of them stories about people they have helped—people who are in considerable distress and, in some cases, considering ending their own lives.

We also heard at this event from Kevin Hao, a very impressive young man in my electorate who has just finished year 12 with outstanding results. While he was at high school he founded an organisation called Youth 4 Difference, which has attracted large numbers of high-school students to volunteer for a whole range of important causes. I joined them last year along with Gisele Kapterian, the then Liberal candidate for North Sydney and the now Liberal candidate for Bradfield, at a community barbecue at Bunnings in support of the DANII Foundation, which works to deal with the scourge of diabetes and early onset diabetes.

We also heard, at my Christmas event just before Christmas, from Fran Signorelli, of Hope in a Suitcase. This is a wonderful volunteer organisation which repairs suitcases full of personal items, clothing and toys for children who are going into foster care and often finding themselves in a situation where they have very few or no personal effects with them.

I acknowledge all these wonderful volunteers and the many other volunteer organisations across the electorate of Bradfield. Thank you for the work you do to make our community a more fortunate place and for the help that you give so many others.