Tuesday, 2 December 2025

 Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (13:51): Last Friday it was a real pleasure to join with the Craigieburn SES unit for their annual awards ceremony, and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank each member of the Craigieburn SES unit for the work that they do every single day, in weather that may be utterly terrible, in keeping our community safe, often in really difficult circumstances. As I reflected last Friday, these volunteers are extraordinarily professional in every single way other than for the fact they do not get paid. They do this through their sense of commitment to community and a true sense of altruism. So I am delighted that as a government we are backing our volunteers so they do not have to be rattling the tin and dipping into their own pockets in order to serve our community in a voluntary capacity. Thank you to Omar, to Harminder and to the entirety of the Craigieburn SES unit for hosting me and for the work that they do every single day to protect our community.