Page 456 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 22 March 2022
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of one of the drains there. For anything that I can be accused of, do not let it be said that my team do not go above and beyond in everything that they do, including cleaning up the lake.
I want to encourage all of my constituents to contact me. While I will do these listening reports or these surveys on a particular area of government investment from time to time, because it is really important to concentrate the mind on particular things that the government is doing, my door, my website, my email and my Facebook page remain constantly open.
I was struck by the number of constituents who took the opportunity, in doing the Lake Tuggeranong survey, to raise with me other municipal issues around the area, be they in the Tuggeranong town centre or across the electorate of Brindabella. I want to encourage everybody to always get in touch with me with feedback. I can only be as good a member to the people of Tuggeranong as the feedback and advice that I receive from those constituents and then relay to decision-makers—cheque-signers in government, as it were, Madam Speaker—to make sure that the good stuff keeps flowing down south, where the sun shines brighter and, in a few weeks or months, the water will be a little cleaner as well.
Ginninderra electorate—Cook community gardens
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra—Assistant Minister for Economic Development, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Business and Better Regulation, Minister for Human Rights and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (5.04): On Sunday I had the honour of joining with the Cook community garden to celebrate their 21 years and to launch a beautiful short history of the gardens by Julie Gorrell titled Bush to Bounty.
Madam Speaker, many seasons have been captured in this tender and tended space—of plant and personal growth, and blossoms of friendship and produce. It is a thriving space, transformed from a bush paddock a little over two decades ago. As founder and original convenor Keith Colls tells it, they had wanted some small funding for one community garden, but the ACT government came back and said, “How about building three, with commensurate funding?” And they did.
With a can-do attitude, in a matter of days it and the gardeners in Kambah and Holder had the location scoped out and constructed, with the only professional help coming from a licensed plumber and draftsman. It is now firmly part of the landscape, the history and the fabric of Cook.
Members in this place may have visited on an open day or simply pondered what is going on when driving past on Bindubi Street or heard about it from a friend. Places like the Cook community garden become so special because of the people, and Cook is nothing without its members. Members and gardeners got it off the ground, literally, and are responsible for regular maintenance works and upgrades and willingly donate their time, materials and expertise—everything from irrigation, given that there is quite significant run-off from Mount Painter, to an upgraded pergola recently.
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