Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Bamstone

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:41): (1874) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Resources and concerns the wonderful Victorian bluestone from Western Victoria Region produced by Bamstone.

Ms Shing interjected.

Mrs McARTHUR: Listen here, Harriet, you will learn a lot. Bamstone is a third-generation family business based in Port Fairy in my electorate, but its origins go back much further than that. Volcanic lava flowed down from Mount Rouse and across the valley to Port Fairy, creating a layer of Australian basalt bluestone of exceptional quality and strength. The potential was first probably noted by Don and Yvonne Bartlett in 1975. Michael and Cheryl Steel took over in 2001, and Sam Steel joined just last year. I know that they are proud to be a family business, a Victorian business and an Australian business. They have pride in their product and in the way they do business, and as a result the wider community has great pride in them. My constituents are always pleased to hear that Bamstone were significant suppliers to the annex here at Parliament House, for example, and you do not have to look far across the state to find scores of other projects their stone defines—even the streets we walk on, from Warrnambool city centre to Acland Street, St Kilda. Their range of products runs from domestic and residential to commercial business properties and even to state-significant civil engineering projects, and it is all based on a philosophy of respecting the natural product and not exploiting the earth.

I congratulate Bamstone on their most recent reward, the Silver Gilt Show Garden at the 2022 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show awards. Working with designer Mark Browning, in honour of whose mother, Audrey, the garden was named Aud, Bamstone were deservedly recognised again for the quality of their product, their craft and their imagination.

The action I seek from the minister is that she join me in congratulating this exemplary Victorian business and committing again to supporting their efforts to grow and flourish as a business. They are a prime example that business can be about cooperation and that staff, owners, customers, the environment and the quality of Victorian public spaces can all be winners, and they show too that mining and the use of natural products more generally is not by definition damaging or exploitative. So, Minister, please join me in acknowledging this and congratulating Bamstone on their significant achievements.

The PRESIDENT: I do not want to waste much time, but I am thinking of the action that you require from the minister—to join you and congratulate them. I do not know if this is an action, but anyway, I will leave it with the minister in the end.