Page 1009 - Week 03 - Thursday, 3 April 2008

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the afternoon, as the relay for life came to a conclusion, again at the AIS athletics track, by which time the whole place was much more animated. People were doing yoga and all sorts of things, and there was entertainment throughout the day.

There were in excess of 100 teams there, participating from a range of schools. From memory, there was the Copland Melba school, Radford College, St Francis Xavier, Dickson College—they are the ones that come to mind, that I recall seeing banners for—a range of business organisations, community organisations, government organisations and of course team Z. Team Z in the course of the relay for life had a considerable number of people who came and showed their support for the cause of raising funds for the Cancer Council, and I would like to pay tribute to Duncan, Ella and Xinyu, who helped to coordinate the team, but particularly to the indomitable, irreplaceable, mercurial Tio Faulkner from my office, who was there for every hour of the 24 hours, who did not sleep, who helped transport all the gear to and from and who kept the spirits of people up at all hours. To those people who contributed to the success of team Z and in a small way to the success of the Cancer Council’s relay for life last Saturday, I say thankyou.

I would also like to talk about the Charnwood Carnival, which was held three weeks ago, on 15 March. It was an extraordinarily hot afternoon, and, with the drought, the poor old Charnwood oval was looking a bit the worse for wear. But that did not detract from the indomitable spirit of the organisers or from the enthusiasm of people attending. There was a bit of disappointment when the slushing machine could not keep up with demand; there were a few unhappy children, and a couple of unhappy adults as well, because we were all hanging out for a slushy. It could not create slushies fast enough in the hot weather. But again we saw great spirit and a range of community organisations coming together in support of the schools and the wider community in Charnwood, an area of considerable social disadvantage.

I would like to pay tribute particularly to Belconnen Community Service for what they do in the Charnwood community and to west Belconnen health and wellbeing cooperative for their work in attempting to set up a bulk-billing doctor service based in the Charnwood community. I acknowledge the considerable support they have received from the community and I also acknowledge the Stanhope government’s commitment to assist in funding that organisation. I hope that we will see the service open very soon.

Housing design seminar

MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (6:18): A fortnight ago I attended the ACTPLA housing design seminar. The seminar discussed the importance of methods of achieving energy efficient housing in the territory. In attendance were public servants, architects, scientists, academics and representatives of the building industry, including Derek Wrigley OAM, Emeritus Professor John Sandeman, Jerry Howard from the Master Builders Association, Catherine Carter from the Property Council, Peter Overton from TT Architecture, Guy Barnett from the CSIRO, Anne Pellegrino from the Australian Greenhouse Office and Ray Prowse from the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, as well as many other experts in the field. The seminar included a presentation by Neil Savery, a crosscheck with national and interstate examples, an industry perspective presentation from industry experts, workshopping sessions and question and answer sessions.


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