There is something very big happening in the town of Goombungee, the picnic town.
What a great name to say—Goombungee. The picnic town is experiencing something of a revival, with new business owners taking over the local cafe and pub. The new publican of the Pioneer Arms Hotel, Tom Gaslevich, started off his working life washing dishes in the pub. His hope and dream was to one day save up enough money to be able to buy the pub and run it himself. A little challenge he had was money.
Thankfully, in our wonderful region, we have the New Acland Coal Mine right there on hand. That provided him with a fantastic job and the ability to slowly but surely save up money so that he could one day pay for his dream.
When the mine was, sadly, brought to an end—the last coal was brought out late last year—Tom received a redundancy; he was one of the last people to do so. We hope to see that mine open back up again, and it’s within the hands of the state Labor government to do so, and I very much hope that they take the opportunity to do that as quickly as possible. But, luckily for Tom, the bright side of the story came through: his redundancy payment coincided with the last pub owner’s retirement, and he was able to make his dream a reality—a great example of the New Acland Coal Mine working so well with the local community, supporting the local community and supporting local people to achieve their dreams.
This is a fantastic example of what’s happening throughout our region and a fantastic example of Goombungee getting ahead.
To view the full speech go to: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansardr/25468/&sid=0048
