Address to the Griffith Australia Day Awards 2013

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Lourdes Hill College, Hawthorne

For the last 14 years now, we have gathered as a local community to celebrate what is great about our community, and what is good about Australia.

And friends, there is much to celebrate including the people we honour in these awards.

We have recognised some 388 recipients over the years.

These are people who cannot receive too much recognition.

They literally keep our community from falling apart.

And as we saw in the 2011 floods – it’s community volunteers who help put the community back together when it’s at risk of falling apart completely.

Before government can announce assistance, before the SES or the Army move in, before the re-building packages begin, the people who are there community volunteers.

And it is not just during times of natural disaster – we have community groups with us today who are there for people when they need help any day of the year and where there aren’t any television cameras around.

I became tired of reading Australia day official  honours lists when often the great and powerful were honoured but those who went quietly about their task over the years did not.

So to make sure we celebrate people such as these – 14 years ago we started the Griffith Australia Day Awards.

I wanted the first major community event I attend every year to be one of the best events I attend every year – reminding us what a great community we have.

Today I would like to talk about why I think this local community is one of the best you’ll find anywhere in the country, and anywhere in the world.

Because I believe that this community on Brisbane’s Southside is one we should all be proud of.

People will try to tell you what’s wrong with the community – it is easy to complain, it is easy to find something wrong, it’s easy to criticise.

It seems harder for people to acknowledge what’s going right in our community.

My advice to all of you today is don’t let anyone talk down our community – because our local community is a truly special place – a place where people do great things, where people do care for others, a place where people really roll up their sleeves.

I mentioned earlier that when floods hit we banded together with volunteers from everywhere – first moving the furniture and then removing the mud. 

One of my proudest days as the local member was to have put out the call for volunteers the day we started the clean-up and by the end of the day having had more than 250 people come through the office to pick up gloves and equipment and head out to a total stranger’s house to help.

I remember when locals spontaneously gathers at the local AFL club to distribute the sandbags.

It was a time when nobody was a stranger, when everyone was one of us.

Our community is also a special place because we are not only a diverse community, we are a harmonious diverse community.

Just yesterday I met with members of the Greek community to talk about how do we house elderly members of the community when they need to go into culturally appropriate aged care.

And in a month’s time I will join with indigenous community members as we commemorate the five year anniversary of the  Apology to Indigenous Australians – and recognise what we have achieved (and to be honest with ourselves about where we have failed).

Our community is also a truly special place because we are internationally minded.

We have local businesses who are penetrating markets across the world from Chile to China.

We have community groups who have organised aid and assistance for places as diverse as the Horn of Africa, Bangladesh and East Timor.

This is a truly special place because we honour those who have gone before us and paid the supreme sacrifice.  

Each ANZAC Day, I am lucky if I can get to four ceremonies in one morning. There are normally about three times that many.

Each one quietly reflecting on heroism of our diggers.

This is a good thing – to have too many people celebrating ANZAC is how it should be.

This is on top of the hundreds of drawings that students send me each year for the Ernie Adsett awards which help students commemorate ANZAC.

This is a truly special community because we have some of the nation’s best schools – I visited almost every one of them over last year, spoken to the students and the teachers and as I left every school there was no doubt in my mind that our future lies in safe hands.

This is also a special place because these schools give back to their communities tenfold. The St Lauries annual fun run to raise money for students with Autisim, Lourdes Hill who help provide services for St Vinnies and Brisbane State High who help provide a monthly BBQ for the homeless.

This is also a truly special place because it is full of small businesses that make you feel welcome, who create the jobs in our local community, and who chip in to help out the those in need through the Helping Hands program which provides care packages to members of our community who live alone.

And our small businesses who sponsor students, the future entrepreneurs of the Southside, through the South East Brisbane Chamber of Commerce.

This is a truly special place because there are world class hospitals doing world class research, looking after our community and literally delivering the next generation.

The PA Hospital is at the forefront of research with the Translational Research Institute under noble prize winner Dr Ian Frazer, the Mater Mothers’ Hospital where my first grandchild was born last year, and the guys at the Mater Children’s who run Radio Lollipop – one of the more fun radio interviews I have done in my time as a local MP.

And this is a special place because you can catch a bus, boat, train or walk to the city. Because here on Brisbane’s Southside we have the bulk of Brisbane’s cultural institutions -  the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, the Gallery of Modern Art, the Queensland Museum and the Queensland Ballet to name a few.

All celebrations of local creative excellence.

And on a personal note, this is where my kids grew up, it is where I began elected life as the Morningside State School as the P&C secretary and president.

It is where we have had our family home for more than 23 years.

It is a place full of memories for Therese and me.

And the place we want to be for the future.

And I am grateful for all these things which makes our community great.

So when asked every Australia Day to reflect on what I think makes Australia a great place – it is here in these suburbs, these community organisations and from these good local people that I draw inspiration.

Just because you love your community it doesn’t mean it can’t be better:

That’s why I’m proud over the last five years that we have built 25 new libraries, 30 new classrooms, and 17 new multipurpose sporting, cultural and community centres.

That’s why I’m proud when I walk down Oxford Street knowing that four years ago we saved local businesses from ruin in the Global Financial Crisis.

That’s why I’m proud that we are now putting the NBN down local streets – to give our economy the tools it needs for the 21^st century.

It is why I am proud when I met people living with severe disability, parents that we are bringing in a National Disability Scheme to life.

It’s why I’m proud of the fact as last we could deliver some fairness for pensioners with the biggest single increase in the pensions’ history. 

And in supporting the most needy in our community, some of you may have seen some controversy when I said we should be doing more to help the unemployed get by.

I regularly visit the Salvation Army Employment Plus so like many of you in this room

So today we gather to say thank you to the volunteers.

And I am pleased that you are all here today to celebrate what makes this Southside community so strong.