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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-08 Daily Xml
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Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:29): It was a great personal pleasure, together with the other co-conveners of the Parliamentary Friends of Greece and Cyprus, to co-host the VIP launch of South Australia's Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HACCI) in Parliament House last week.

The event was an outstanding success with more than 80 people from throughout the Greek and local business community attending. Guests and speakers included the Chief Justice, Chris Kourakis SC; prominent developer Theo Maras; newly appointed Property Council of SA Executive Director and philhellene, Bruce Djite; and well-known Adelaide businessman and philhellene Francis Wong OAM.

We got off to a great start with the Premier, Peter Malinauskas; the Minister for Small and Family Business, Consumer and Business Affairs and the Arts, Andrea Michaels; the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Energy and Mining, Tom Koutsantonis, who jointly hosted the event for the group; and others speaking on the night about the influence Greek migrants have had in South Australia's history and how that will continue with their sons and daughters—the next generation of dedicated, hardworking South Australian Greeks. I thank also the Hon. Heidi Girolamo, who attended in her capacity representing the opposition leader but also as a philhellene.

As many in this chamber know, South Australia has a proud history of Greek migrants contributing strongly to its development and growth. This has motivated a group of emerging Greek South Australian business leaders to revive HACCI SA, which is dedicated to supporting the Hellenic business community diaspora in the state.

Among other things, HACCI SA plans to host networking and other events, offer mentoring and develop a business directory and app—all designed to build strong connections between Greek Australians within the state, interstate and overseas. On a personal level, I am really excited to be working with HACCI on the formation of a Greek Women in Business network.

While a Greek Chamber of Commerce was established in SA in the late nineties, it was dormant for almost 10 years, so the decision by this young, invigorated group was made to relaunch it. We have some young, inspirational people on the board including chair, Kosta Koutsonas, from Samaras Group; Alex Demetriou from KPMG; John Tsianos from the Adelaide 36ers; Dr Sylvia Villios, Associate Professor of Law at Adelaide Law School; Vas Marinos, Principal at Norman Waterhouse; Allicia Tsolis, Executive Manager at Suncorp; and Peter Panas, Relationship Director at Bank SA.

The local HACCI branch forms part of a federation of chambers operating across the country whose aims are to support greater collaboration between businesses and professionals within Australia and, as I said, help facilitate trade opportunities between local businesses and partners in Greece and Cyprus. Talking about HACCI, Mr Koutsonas said:

Creating a stronger business community and establishing these connections means we can leverage each other's successes, so we can grow and prosper together.

Our vision of success would see our community transacting with each other in SA, nationally with our partner chambers, and exporting our goods and IP to Europe through Greece.

We met with the trade commissioner in Sydney and were overwhelmed by the opportunities that exist for businesses in our state. This includes sourcing a highly skilled and competent labour force to migrate to South Australia, and work remotely from Greece.

My parliamentary colleagues and I who are of Greek Australian background I think are a walking testament to the first generation of Greek migrants who have left an indelible mark on SA. It is the perfect migrant story and one that each and every other wave of migrants has strived for since coming to this place, and it is one that I am exceptionally proud of.

Our families, like many other migrant families, came here and worked really hard to pave a future for their children. They contributed to building successful businesses. They contributed to helping shape our state and our communities. I think that our community, the broader South Australian community, continues to benefit from that contribution. Many of their sons and daughters who attended the launch event last week have become extraordinarily successful members of our business community and, as I said on the night, if the board's commitment to HACCI is anything like their strong work ethic then HACCI will be in very good hands for years to come.

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