Wednesday, 19 February 2020

St Albans Lunar Festival

Ms SULEYMAN (St Albans) (10:02): The new year started with the St Albans Lunar Festival, celebrating the Year of the Rat. What made this year very special was the St Albans traders and Vietnamese community uniting to raise funds for the bushfire-affected communities. In particular, I would like to thank the Quang Minh Temple, its volunteers and also the Venerable Thich Phuoc Tan, Dr Phuc Nhan Pham, committee member Peter Nguyen and also Andy Ho for their work, together with the St Albans traders.

We know that the Vietnamese community has always been very generous and hardworking and has given back to the community, like they did for the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Already the Vietnamese community have raised throughout Melbourne close to $1 million for the fire-affected communities, which is just an amazing effort.

I am enormously proud of—and I would also like to thank—the St Albans fire brigade, which also attended during the day and assisted with raising funds. It really did assist with the morale and spirit of the day. We saw what makes St Albans very special and unique: it is people coming together and supporting communities that are doing it tough and, most of all, giving back.

I would also like to thank the St Albans business association, including Sebastian Agricola, who is celebrating 20 years this year, and also Ray Jacobs and all the volunteers for organising another successful St Albans Lunar Festival.