Thursday, 24 March 2022

Ministers statements: regional veterans

Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (12:25): On Labour Day I was very lucky to be in the beautiful location of Jamieson for the official opening of the Matthews Reserve avenue of honour. The Jamieson community planted the avenue of honour of Japanese maples in the 1920s to acknowledge the 51 local residents who served during World War I. Some work had been done in recent times and there was a bit of a relaunch of this particular avenue of honour, and I am pleased that our government through the Victoria Remembers program funded 51 bespoke brass plaques. The plaques display the name of each World War I veteran handwritten by the children at Jamieson Primary School, with some names written by the descendants of the veterans. Craig Eury, a local artist, crafted the plaques, and they are fantastic. I thank the Jamieson community for welcoming me.

I also travelled to East Gippsland and dropped into the Bairnsdale RSL—or ‘Barnsdale’, whichever side of the street you are on—and caught up with Alan Patten, a very good man. There are 400 veteran members at that particular RSL, and I had a great meeting with them around a number of issues, including the royal commission into the defence force.

Then I was lucky enough to go to the Carry On Cafe and launch their new veterans wellbeing hub in Morwell, a magnificent facility which holds a food bank service, a veterans social space, a multipurpose room for group exercise and also some one-on-ones in terms of advocacy for Department of Veterans Affairs welfare claims. I congratulate David McLachlan and his team for the magnificent work they do right across the state.