Croydon war memorial
Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:32): I rise to update the house on a recent visit I made to Croydon on Sunday morning. There were two benefits to my visit. One was that I was able to see the progress on the Level Crossing Removal Project that is happening at Coolstore Road, but it was also a great privilege to be able to attend to watch the removal of the war memorial. It is a strange situation in that that memorial was placed in the middle of a roundabout; the development of the road system locally around there has meant that it is now in the middle of a road and quite inaccessible. So it was a great privilege to see the care that was taken by the team who were sent to remove the war memorial, which will now progress and make its way to a new place in Croydon town square. It was great to meet with the local Croydon RSL and also veterans who came down to watch. The crane lovingly picked up the first part of the memorial, part of a granite memorial which was originally unveiled in 1919. It was a very tense operation as we were watching to make sure that that memorial was removed and placed lovingly on the back of a truck. But I can report to the house that it all went very, very smoothly. Many servicepeople came to watch and locals also came to watch. It was quite an operation to watch and we were all privileged to see it. I can update the house and say it was very pleasing to see that the memorial was removed without damage.