The Kent Street Senior High School held a dinner on Saturday night, which I attended, to celebrate 30 years of aviation at the school. Aviation was first introduced into the school curriculum back in 1979. It was a single class and comprised 27 year 11 students, many of whom had come from outside th...

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I want to speak about access to broadband in my electorate. It is an issue that is of some contention in Swan. In almost every corner of my electorate there are telecommunications problems, ranging from excruciatingly slow broadband to periodic outages. The problem affects thousands of families in t...

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I thank the member for Pearce and the member for Canning for the opportunity to speak on this motion, and I also acknowledge the contributions of the members for Hasluck and Hindmarsh. I acknowledge the nine points in the member’s motion and support the member’s call to implement an inquiry and also...

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Last Thursday I held a seniors forum at Queens Park Homestay Village in my electorate of Swan. I am pleased to report that the forum attracted a lively and inquisitive audience of senior Australians and was supported by both the shadow minister for ageing, Margaret May, and WA Senator Chris Back. A ...

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At the beginning of Carers Week 2009 it seems fitting that I rise to talk about Southcare, a community based organisation in my electorate of Swan which provides caring services. Last Tuesday I attended Southcare’s AGM and was pleased to hear about the progress being made on a project that I feel pr...

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I rise to speak tonight, a week after the seventh anniversary of the Bali bombings, which took the lives of 202 people in the tourist district of Kuta on 12 October 2002. In this cowardly act of terrorism, among the dead were 88 Australians, many of whom were from Western Australia, holidaying in Ba...

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Australia is one of the best places in the world to be educated. It is because of this that education is Australia’s third largest export, worth $15.4 billion to the Australian economy in 2008 alone. There are many other areas in our society which benefit from this industry. The Colombo Plan, introd...

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It is always a pleasure to rise in this place and discuss the topic of citizenship, the common bond that binds us together as a nation, particularly on this day—National Citizenship Day. However, I rise today to raise some concerns with the legislation before the House, the Australian Citizenship Am...

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I too am a proud dad. But this evening I am going to talk about women, so I will leave the dad things out because the member for Braddon did a great job of that. This evening I rise to talk about the results of the choice in childbirth survey I recently conducted in my electorate of Swan. Obviously ...

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I rise today to talk about the state of the roads in my electorate of Swan and how this government must do more to deliver on its promises. In my local area there are a number of significant roads and freight routes that are important to local communities and are important for the economic developme...

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