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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-09-23 Daily Xml
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Welcome to Australia

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (15:45): Last Saturday, at the magnificent Reedbeds Community Centre in Fulham, along with Welcome to Australia SA and the City of West Torrens, I hosted a welcome event. Between the hours of 11am and 3pm, and with approximately 300-plus people in attendance, my community was able to display through its actions what it wants us all to be, and that is a people whose community welcomes with a warm heart and open arms those from many different cultures who have sought refuge, asylum, or resettlement in our country. I was very proud that this event was held in my electorate and proud that our community was able to eagerly participate in this event of welcome.

Now, Gay is not up there, but I will just say this for Hansard:I have a lot of people to thank, so I am going to do a Duncan McFetridge and read them really quickly, but they are all written down. Some of the people who attended included:

His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le AO, Governor of South Australia, who greeted and welcomed so many new arrivals and actually spoke to so many people there that day, a magnificent Governor of this state;

Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, and her daughter, Alexandra;

the Hon. Susan Close, member for Port Adelaide;

the Hon. Zoe Bettison, Minister for Multicultural Affairs;

Steve Georganas, the federal candidate for Hindmarsh and his wife, Wendy, were also in attendance;

the Hon. John Trainer OAM, Mayor of the City of West Torrens Council, and one of the hosts of the day;

Angela Keneally, Mayor of the City of Charles Sturt;

Megan Lamb and Ali Jafari, the state co-directors of Welcome to Australia SA;

Brad Chilcott, National Director, Welcome to Australia; and

Mohammad Al-Khafaji, CEO, Welcome to Australia, and Leah Marrone.

These were our invited guests, but they were certainly very important to have there to show that, throughout our community, people from various positions within our community are there to provide that support and welcome to these people. As I mentioned earlier, our community came in massive numbers to participate in this event. Rose Dunn, the Coordinator of the Reedbeds Community Centre, was absolutely magnificent in the work that she undertook to make sure the event went well. We also had sporting clubs there:

Alan O'Neill, President of the Henley Heat Soccer Club; and

Andrew Gates, President of the Grange Lawn Tennis Club, and coach, David Grainger—and it was great to see the youngsters participate and have a try at both soccer and tennis.

Deputy Speaker, we had, and I know you will like this, a jazz ensemble from St Michael's College under the auspices of Andy Collingwood and students Ethan, Cameron, Sean, Orton and Anthony. They played beautiful music throughout the day. There were a couple who tried to see if the Governor would use his not inconsiderable skills, as I understand it, as a guitarist but, quite rightly, he refused to participate in that, but enjoyed the music from these young people. The list continues:

Emily Gore from the Young Labor Left and the magnificent volunteers she had;

Adam Whitefield, Program Coordinator at Build the Bridge Volunteers;

Joanna Bouyesi, Project Officer, Sport and Development at UniSA and her volunteer and assistant, Luca;

Uma and Keith Preston for arranging the Afghani music, which was traditional Afghani music and quite mesmerizing and was certainly enjoyed by everyone there;

Linda Bell, a henna artist;

Jarrah from Jump Easy Bouncy Castles, which the kids really enjoyed; and

Karen Biens, face painter, and Graham, the balloon man.

Importantly, I want to recognise that Simorne Banicevic and Spero Chapley from Frewville Foodland donated very large containers of organic fruit for people to enjoy at this particular event. We also certainly enjoyed the performance by the Coptic Egyptian children's choir who sang for everyone in attendance. Other people who assisted during the day included:

Hannah Keane; the Christopoulos family—Tas, Peter, Leah and Penny;

Rhys Lohf; and

Jessica Ware and Dylan Russell.

It is important to recognise these people from my office who worked tirelessly over the last few months: Dylan Russell, Tyson Kinnane, Sarah Toming, Andrew Christie and, in particular, Emma Christie for her tireless work in organising this event. I am very proud of the work they did.

I just want to reinforce the community involvement: we letterboxed the area of Fulham around Reedbeds to make sure we got a lot of people from the community there, and we did—and they certainly enjoyed it. We had representatives from the Fijian and Italian communities, and I mentioned the Egyptian community amongst others, and it turned out to be a day that surpassed my expectations.

I would like to also mention that on 31 October (I think it is that date, and I will correct the record if that is not the case) the annual Walk Together event will be held, when people from our community can walk in Adelaide from Elder Park to the Parklands to show our community support for welcoming those people who are seeking refuge in this country. I look forward to greeting those people from Syria who will be relocated in this state I hope in the not too distant future. I thank everyone involved in the event, and I thank all those people who attended and supported it. It spoke volumes about our community.

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