Page 4390 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 13 October 2009
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President of the ACT section of the Naval Association of Australia, for the invitation and for hosting the function.
The Royal Australian Navy commemorated its founding and remembered those who died as a result of their service in Australia’s Navy with a memorial service conducted near the anniversary of the date on which the Royal Australian Navy fleet entered Sydney Harbour in October 1913.
There were a number of other distinguished guests there, including the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Russell Crane. There was Lieutenant General David Hurley on behalf of the Chief of the Defence Force, Brigadier Don Roach on behalf of the Chief of Army, Air Commodore Ian Smith on behalf of the Chief of Air Force, Lieutenant Commander Peter McNay on behalf of the Naval Association of Australia, Rear Admiral Ken Doolan from the Returned Servicemen’s League of Australia, Group Captain Arthur Skimin (Retired) on behalf of the RAAF Association, Peter Ryan from the Vietnam Veterans Association, Brian Parker from the Royal Naval Association, Pauline Trounson from the ACT WRANS Association, Ms Shirley Percival from the War Widows Guild of Australia, and Mr Chris Hudson of the TPI Association. So I pay tribute to the association for the memorial service; it was a wonderful event.
I would also like to pay tribute to the Chamber of Women in Business for their launch which I attended recently. The launch was conducted by former Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Their Purple Tick Initiative recognises businesses that provide a service that is women and family friendly, and it was a great pleasure to be there and to hear about the Purple Tick.
The Purple Tick will indeed represent a women and family-friendly workplace that provides confidence and certainty when shopping for goods and services. The Women in Business Purple Tick Initiative allows Canberra businesses to complete a detailed checklist to ascertain how women and family friendly their businesses are. It is a wonderful initiative and I am sure that many of our local businesses will take it up over time as word spreads. We will be very happy to promote it in any way that we can. I once again congratulate Ms Kate Carnell and indeed the Chamber of Women in Business for this initiative and for the very professional launch.
ACT Korean community
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (5.17): In my capacity as shadow minister for multicultural affairs, a couple of weeks ago, 29 September, I had the pleasure of being the guest of the ACT Korean community as they celebrated the celebrations of Chu Suk, which, translated, means the harvest full moon festival. It is a time when families and friends gather to share food and enjoy their time together, giving thanks to their ancestors for the year’s bountiful harvests. It is also a time when families from all around Korea pack up and head on the road to visit their families’ ancestral sites, while here in Canberra the Korean community, far from their motherland, share these traditions with their Australian families and friends.
It is also a special time for me, because it was during these celebrations nearly 10 years ago that I met Dr Song, the then Korean ambassador to Australia. Dr Song discovered that my ancestry was Hungarian. He told me that we were, in fact, brothers,
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