Page 2241 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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Indigenous men, women, families, community elders, mums’ groups, and children and young people.
There is also a strong emphasis on preventative health, with social programs around tobacco, healthy lifestyles, and drug and alcohol issues. Whilst it is important to acknowledge that there are still serious health problems facing our Indigenous community, it is vitally important to acknowledge the hard work, dedication and progress being made by front-line community organisations like Winnunga.
Well done, Winnunga, and congratulations. Well done for all the amazing work that they do in the community. Well done for leading the way in providing specialised and culturally appropriate health care for the Canberra Indigenous community. Congratulations on their 30th birthday. I look forward to celebrating many more milestones with them.
Dr John La Salle—tribute
Mr Steve Krikonis—tribute
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (4.42): It is with great sadness that I speak today to honour two extraordinary members of the Ginninderra community who died in May. Dr John La Salle was an entomologist and insect taxonomist. He made an extraordinary contribution to the science community over a long and distinguished career, particularly in his leadership in the collection and classification of data and in making that data available.
Importantly, Dr La Salle played a key role in establishing the Atlas of Living Australia and was later its director. The Atlas of Living Australia is a collaborative national project that aggregates biodiversity data and makes it accessible and usable online for anyone to use. Prior to that, Dr La Salle served as the Director of the Australian National Insect Collection for more than 10 years.
I first met John, as he was known to me, during the 2016 campaign, in the cold outside Jamison. I regularly held evening stalls and John became a feature of them because he would often pop into the plaza, I think on his way home from work. John would always—always—say hello. Sometimes we would have longer conversations; sometimes he would just say a friendly passing hello and sometimes I would be talking with someone else and he would just simply give me a wave.
Madam Speaker, I realise these are only small gestures, but especially in the depths of what could be a very cold and very lonely campaign, those gestures meant so much to me and they continued after the campaign. I think they speak deeply to his character. His contribution to science, not only in Canberra but also in Australia and internationally, was obviously extraordinary and will be missed. I extend my deep and sincere condolences to John’s family, friends and colleagues.
Madam Speaker, Steve Krikonis was the man behind Steve’s Melba Takeaway & Pizza. Steve came to Canberra in 1966 and had a varied career before settling on takeaway. Steve’s takeaway shop has been a Belconnen fixture for 25 years and Steve a Belconnen icon. He was instrumental in saving the Melba shops.
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