Sergeant Blaine Diddams was gunned down during a mission against an insurgent commander's compound near Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan on 2 July. The 40-year-old father of two was a Special Forces soldier and a member of the Perth based Special Air Service Regiment.
Read MoreMigration has been good for Australia. Australia has been good to migrants. It works both ways. I rise to speak tonight on this Migration Legislation Amendment (Offshore Processing and Other Measures) Bill 2011 as a member for an electorate which has many migrants.
Read MoreOf all the important debates which take place in this parliament, none will have a more profound impact on the future of our nation than those involving water. Water is life. Life is water. The American forester and founding member of the Wilderness Society, Bernard Frank, said:
Read MoreUsing the slogan 'Open your eyes to Australia's food bowl' the Griffith Business Chamber is hosting a Murray-Darling Basin Plan rally in the heart of the Murrumbidgee irrigation area next Wednesday, 27 June. Griffith's main street, Banna Avenue, will once again come to a standstill as locals fight for their right to have a future.
Read MoreLabor devotees in the Riverina and many others too are mourning the death of Francis John Walker, QC, better known as Frank, a former government minister in both the New South Wales and Commonwealth parliaments. Lifelong Labor supporter George Martin from Tumbarumba, who visited parliament today, remembered Frank Walker as a decent fellow.
Read MoreAmie St Clair was a confident, happy, strong willed, talented and enormously popular sportswoman with a positive attitude. Born and bred in Wagga Wagga, she loved all sport but had a real passion and talent for softball, playing in many representative sides. Wes Bonny was your average fun-loving Australian.
Read MoreOur nation is forever indebted to Australian Defence Force families who make enormous sacrifices. Partners of serving personnel and children wave their loved ones off at airports and docks not knowing if they will ever see them again. We know a soldier killed on duty pays the supreme sacrifice for their country; so too does their family.
Read MoreIt is important for Australia to establish a sustainable, healthy and safe energy future, but we must ensure we do it without putting environmental measures before people and livelihoods. Support for wind power generation has been driven by a desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a diversification of energy sources.
Read MoreThis Labor government has not done the right and proper thing by veterans as far as their superannuation entitlements are concerned. I acknowledge what the member for Chisholm has just said. If that is so, let us work together as a parliament for those people she rightly praised in her speech.
Read MoreI rise this evening to support the motion on the Australian Standard for Olive and Olive-Pomace Oils in 2011. Extra virgin olive oil is the only mainstream edible oil which has not been chemically or physically refined and changed; it is just the natural juice of the olive.
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