Jude Perera
Adem SOMYUREK (Northern Metropolitan) (13:48): I rise to express my condolence on the passing last month of the late Jude Perera. Jude and I were elected to Parliament in 2002, and Jude’s seat of Cranbourne was one of the four lower house seats within my upper house electorate of Eumemmerring Province. Given that my seat was a Liberal-held marginal, I had a strong interest in keeping a watchful eye on Jude’s election campaign. There was concern within the party at that stage that the demographics of Cranbourne at that time would not be receptive to Jude’s candidacy. As it turned out the concerns were not warranted. Jude won the electorate, receiving a monster 10 per cent swing and in doing so exponentially increasing my chances of election. I first met Jude in the mid-1990s through Jude’s activism in the south-eastern Labor Party branches. Jude was passionate about fostering civic engagement and promoting active citizenship within the culturally diverse communities. That is why Jude took it upon himself to engage and integrate his own community, the growing Sri Lankan community, into the democratic processes of their adopted country by encouraging them to participate in political activism through the Labor Party. Jude was a true migrant success story, battling the odds to achieve the high honour of being the first person from the Indian subcontinent to be elected to Parliament. I express my sincere condolences to Jude’s family.