Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During times of crisis Australians, of course, come together. I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to some of the local heroes here in Canberra who have done great things during the COVID crisis. People right around the nation have been doing great things, but I want to honour some great Canberrans. I want to draw the Senate's attention to some outstanding Canberrans.

I would like to acknowledge Dr Toby Angstmann. He is a doctor and the founder of the Canberra distillery Underground Spirits. For several years Toby and the team at Underground Spirits have produced some of the finest gin and vodka in the country. When COVID-19 restrictions saw the closure of pubs and clubs, Underground Spirits switched to producing hand sanitiser. They produced more than 40,000 litres, which was distributed to doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, dentists and to those most in need. Among the customers were those on the frontline at Services Australia, who faced the serious prospect of being unable to open their offices up and down the east coast of our country. Underground Spirits were able to supply 12,000 litres of hand sanitiser within 24 hours to enable Centrelink offices to continue their work. I commend Toby and his entire team for the work they've done and continue to do.

Underground Spirits are not alone in changing rapidly from the production of alcohol for consumption to hand sanitiser. I want to recognise Unicorn Spirits, Big River Distilling, The Canberra Distillery and Capital Brewing Co as well for their excellent work.

Then there's Glenn Keys and his excellent team at Aspen Medical. Aspen Medical is a Canberra based company that has more than 200 Canberra based staff. They've been working to deliver pop-up emergency departments and additional testing facilities not just here in Canberra but right around the country—a really important part of our response in dealing with this health crisis and part of the insurance policy if those numbers were to grow significantly, which, thankfully, to date have not.

I would also like to recognise John and Lyn Anderson, the owners of Federation Square, a small shopping centre precinct in Gold Creek Village. John and Lynn consider their tenants family, and when times get tough family members pull together to make sure everyone gets through, so that's exactly what John and Lyn did. In an extraordinary demonstration of the Australian spirit, John and Lynn told each of their 30 tenants that they wouldn't need to pay rent at all for the month of April—very generous.

There is also Tamara Ryan, who set up the Canberra Region Coronavirus Mutual Aid Facebook group in order to connect those in need with those who can lend a hand. Members help others with grocery runs and supplying essential goods to those unable to do so for themselves or to those socially isolating.

We've seen people at the Australian National University—my old uni and the greatest in Australia on the latest rankings—in their own homes come together to crash print batches of face shields for frontline health workers to ensure they got the PPE they needed when there may have been shortages. And it has been good to see that, despite everything, the Turner RUC has been continuing with a virtual meat raffle on Fridays. Well done to the team there.

Of course there are also the unsung heroes with the COVID-19 crisis. Like in other parts of the country, they're the supermarket workers putting in overtime to keep our shelves stocked—going above and beyond. They are the cleaners working to ensure that our workplaces and public transport are as safe as they possibly can be.

I wanted to pay tribute to the Australian Public Service, many of whom are based here in Canberra. There are a lot of people in Australia who like to bash the Australian Public Service, and some of them come into this place from time to time, but I think it's fair to say—and I would say on behalf of Canberrans and on behalf of Australians more broadly—there has been some extraordinary work done during this crisis by some of our Australian public servants. That's whether it was frontline workers at Services Australia, who really geared up to make sure that people could get the payments they need; whether it was the Chief Medical Officer and other health officials; whether it was those in Treasury and Finance doing the economic response; or whether it was those in the department of industry, looking at some of those supply lines, and of course in the department of infrastructure; and in so many other areas—whether it was other frontline workers. To those Canberrans in particular I just wanted to say thank you tonight. I want to say thank you for your outstanding work, thank you for your service to our city and, for those going beyond, thank you for your service to our nation during this very difficult time.