Celebrating Lilley Women and Zillmere Festival

Ms WELLS (Lilley) (10:17): I rise in the Chamber today to congratulate Shorncliffe State School on their centennial, which we celebrated on the Friday and Saturday of this past weekend—100 years strong. It gave me cause to reflect upon the strong and proud tradition of strong and resilient Shorncliffe women who have graced us for more than 100 years in serving our community. In 1919, Ms Sarah Hall was the headmistress who opened what was known then as Shorncliffe Infants School and today is Shorncliffe State School. It was a woman who opened that school and, flash forward today, Ms Rehm is the principal, a strong woman keeping that school thriving and flourishing in that community. It also gave me cause to reflect upon something I mentioned in my first speech, which was that Shorncliffe Pier is home to Queensland's first women's surf lifesaving club, the Sandgate Ladies Lifesaving Club, which used the bathing sheds at the pier that opened in the 1950s.

In 1980, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives was Elaine Darling, who was elected as the member for Lilley. Shortly after she was elected, there were some horrific fires in Brighton, which is topical when you think about Queensland today. She did not sleep, did not rest, did not leave that suburb until everybody whose homes were damaged had a place to stay that night, had something to eat and had a pathway to recovery and to getting their homes repaired.

I rise today to celebrate our history of strong Shorncliffe women, from Ms Sarah Hall, who opened Shorncliffe school 100 years ago, right through to Ms Melanie Rehm, who runs the Shorncliffe State School so well today, and Kristen Davie, who is the P&C president there. They are strong women all, and I pay tribute to our strong Shorncliffe women who keep our community thriving.

I also wish to congratulate the organisers of the Zillmere Festival, which had their 17th annual festival across the weekend. Specifically, I'd like to pay tribute to Kika McIntyre of the Multicultural Development Association and to Brett Roland at Jabiru Community, Youth and Children's Services, who did so much work and put in so many hours behind the scenes to get that festival up and running. The conditions were very hot and dry but because of the strength of that community thousands of people rolled up anyway to support their organisations and to raise money for the organisation that is doing work in their community. It was supported by the PCYC Zillmere, an institution in the area doing so much work against crime and on helping youth stay connected. The North Star Football Club offered their grounds, and I congratulate them on their recent grant funding which will see them get some very jazzy new lights to light up the field. That is thanks to all tiers of government—council, state and federal—working together to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money so they could get those lights.

There is lots happening in Zillmere. They've got a new school opening at Jabiru, thanks to their new local MP, Bart Mellish. It is a wonderful community, and we don't do enough to celebrate that. Congratulations to everybody in Zillmere.