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Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Page: 4411

Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright) (16:06): I rise to inform the House of the recent 111th year celebrations at the Boonah show. Boonah is a community in my electorate of about 2,800 people situated roughly an hour and a half south-west of Brisbane. The community is in a predominantly rural precinct and has no ties to the resources sector. Before I go on I must say that two members of the parliament, Senator Ludwig and Senator Ian Macdonald, were both educated in Boonah, so it has a high output of quality personnel. I believe the health of a community is gauged by two things: whether or not you can get a park in the main street and the attendance rate at their agricultural show. This year was an outstanding success for the Boonah show, having over 7,000 entrants through the show gate.

Before I go on, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the show committee— the president, Jim Harvey, the two vice presidents, Anthony Niebling and Trevor Collins, followed up by the secretarial work of Beth Hern, who does an amazing amount of work not only for the show society but also in the community. They also have a very interactive and aggressive junior show committee, which is made up of the president, Sarah Ziebrath, the vice presidents, Brett Brassington and Lyndell Peters, and a list of other members as well. They had a very aggressive show ball this year, which was attended by about 240 people, where I crowned the Miss Showgirl, Anna Hartley, and the runner up, Helen Sanderson. The Show Princess was Kloe Brassington and the runner up was Kimberley Navie. It is a crying shame that our city cousins in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide may go through their lives as Australians and never experience the wonderful pleasure of progressive barn dance in a small community hall.

As I alluded to earlier, there were about 7,000 people through the gate, a record for the Boonah show, and all sectors of the show were aggressively patronised. In the rural sector the quality of the stock was fantastic during some of the biggest droughts and floods that we have seen up there. It was marvellous to see the community bounce back. The show was also pleased to host the HiLux Heroes. The word was that the HiLux vehicles in the centre ring were actually better than they were at the Sydney show. I commend Boonah as a community for the wonderful work that they do with their show.