Tuesday, 17 February 2026

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:22): I rise today to acknowledge the wonderful community spirit that I experienced last week as my community, the Polwarth community, are beginning to recover from recent bushfires and floods. A special shout-out to the young students at the Beeac Primary School and the St Mary’s, Colac, primary school, who, together with one of the dads, Peter Reid, and local CFA officials, came together in a celebration of all the hard work that our CFA volunteers have done over all of this summer. It was a wonderful tribute with art and a few speeches, and even the head of the CFA came down to support this community initiative.

That came on top of a wonderful visit to the Gellibrand hall, which the Gellibrand neighbourhood house occupies. The Gellibrand neighbourhood house has done a wonderful job over recent weeks, providing a venue for the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing and food, clothing and other support that the community needs at this time.

It is also worth noting that in coming days we will see the wonderful support of BlazeAid and the volunteers that will be coming to the community to help the many farmers replace literally hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of fencing, which will need to be done before winter sets in and the hills of Carlisle River and Gellibrand become too wet and boggy to replace fencing – very important work to do indeed. So a big shout-out to those various groups, who have been working well together, and to the kids and the community of Colac, who are celebrating that hard work.