Debates Day 5 - Wednesday 17 October 2007
Parliamentary Record 17
Debates for 10th Assembly 2005 - 2008; 10th Assembly 2005 - 2008; Parliamentary Record; ParliamentNT
2007-10-17
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
English
Debates
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
application/pdf
Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/278153
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/423053
DEBATES Wednesday 17 October 2007 4898 Congratulations to the school, the parents and support staff but, most of all, congratulations to the 23 students who competed in the event. I am sure that the school will go onto bigger and better things when they organise the event for next year. Talking about schools, the pupils, teachers and parents of Durack Primary School, with some assistance from the Conservation Volunteers Australia and under the guidance of the teacher, Heidy Rubin, who is an absolute driving force, created a new feature for the school: a frog pond. The frog pond will provide a sanctuary for frogs away from the harm of cane toads and it will provide the venue for several classes where the children will learn about cane toads and the techniques for preventing their spread and, of course, nurturing our native wildlife in healthy and friendly environments, in particular, our green tree frogs. I extend my congratulations to Heidy, Mr Joe and all the children from the school who put their efforts and time into creating such a great feature at the school. Thanks are also extended to Greg from Palmerston Garden Supplies and Mr Wayne Zerbe from the Palmerston Regional Business Association who supplied and organised the materials for the project. Without that assistance, the ponds would not have been built. My sincere thanks go to Greg and Wayne for the organisation and supply of those materials. The project is a wonderful set-up. A large pond will take pride of place and is surrounded by two smaller ponds. When the shade is erected and more plants are established, it is going to be a wonderful tropical environmental feature and will be fascinating for our little green friends to set up home in the future. There was another major community event held recently that included a Palmerston component and that was the Cancer Councils Relay for Life. It was conducted at Gardens Oval. We had participants from the Palmerston area, the Palmies in Pyjamies and Team Palmlesstonnes and, together, they raised around about $7000 for the Cancer Council. It was an 18-hour event and was fabulously well attended. It was not too exhaustive an experience and all participants who undertook the walk enjoyed it despite a massive and unexpected pre-Wet Season downpour. They had a great time and are already looking forward to next year. Well done to Denise and Peter Rowe. I met Denise and Peter through my Palmlesstonnes involvement when we had a couple of walks from my office. Denise and Peter started walking this year and it is great to see that they have continued. I know Peter is feeling a lot better for it and Denise tries to get there as often as she can with her crook back. It is terrific to see their progress and that they are participating in a lot of local events. The 2007 Panasonic World Solar Challenge will start this weekend. It starts in Darwin and heads down to Adelaide, crossing our vast and imposing continent from north to south using only sunlight for fuel. Of course, I am talking about the solar cars. It is a landmark year, the 20th anniversary. One of my schools, Kormilda College, is competing for the seventh year. They have entered their vehicle Towards Tomorrow. The team has been out practising very hard to compete with some of the very experienced and well-supported teams from around the globe. Some of them have been in Darwin for over a month setting up their vehicles. I am looking forward to seeing them tomorrow and over the weekend. Towards Tomorrow has outrun and outlasted competitors in its own class as well as competitors with multimillion dollar budgets from other countries running in more advanced classes. It holds its own among the best. It is great to see that the students are using their combined strategies, ingenuity and familiarity of the event over the years. They seem to be going from strength to strength each year. They are competing against countries such as Japan, the United States, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia and the Philippines. It is a great event. The students benefit greatly from the organisation and the camaraderie they have with the other teams. It is a skill-sharing exercise where they have a lot of team building. They make new friendships and, meeting teams from other countries, they learn a lot about those countries and about the set-up of the vehicles on the road. It is a fabulous event. I know that drivers, Tom Hamilton, Rachael Boor, Stephanie Braun and Tom Scanlan will share the drive to Adelaide. They have been having some familiarisation at Hidden Valley on the go-karts strip. They have been practising since early September. I want to acknowledge the sponsors that are right behind Kormilda: MKEA Architects and the Charles Darwin University are their platinum sponsors. Their gold sponsors are Bank SA and Power and Water, and their silver sponsors are Merit Partners and All Financial Services, with special thanks to Linfox FCL for bringing the vehicles back from Adelaide, which is great support from them. The bronze sponsor is Norsign. It would not be complete without mentioning the team members and the support team. From Year 12, we had Francis Allan, Norman Eagle and Glen Summers. Unfortunately, the Year 12s are not able to compete because of the effort they have to put into their examinations, but they have been very supportive of the team. They were in the team over the last couple of years, and they have mentored the team which is going to Adelaide, which is invaluable. I thank