The mayor, Theresa Harding, discusses various community events and initiatives in Ipswich, including the recent ANZAC Day celebrations and the upcoming Plains, Trains, and Autos Festival. She highlights the diversity of Ipswich’s multicultural community and recent meetings with government officials to discuss funding for infrastructure projects. The conversation also touches on special memorial services, such as one at the RAAF Base Amberley, commemorating World War II squadron members.
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It is time for us to take a little look at what’s been going on in council and of course we do that with Mayor Theresa Harding. Good morning. Good morning Damo, good morning to all the listeners. It is good to talk to you and first of all I’ve got to say congratulations to council for the support they go to the Ypswich RSL sub-branch.
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for what became a fantastic turnout for ANZAC Day. The main march was really well attended and I think people really enjoyed it. But can I just take my hat off to all the RSL sub-branches, but the many ANZAC Day observance committees and community groups, there were, on ANZAC Day itself, there was 25 services and 10 marches. That’s a lot of organizing and council’s always very happy to support any of those groups. But yeah, just want to thank the people of Ipswich for…
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holding these services. It’s a really important part of our community and our culture. It certainly is. And also to the fantastic four superheroes that pushed the Jeep when it decided not to go. Yes, Matt Reni, OIM, who’s a Korean war veteran, was in one of the Jeeps and obviously it’s a vintage vehicle. And so it’s pouted out and about three guys jumped on and then a fourth one did. So I think we’re hunting down their names. We’ve got the names of three of them. We’re just trying to find the fourth one. But what…
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I thought when I was standing up on the dice and I saw that, I thought that’s the Anzac spirit. You know, you’re getting in there to help your mate. You don’t know who the person is beside you, but you’re going to help a mate. Well, they did a fantastic job. And of course, you know, the driver said, oh, just push us over the curb. No, mate, you’re going to do the whole journey. I hope Matt doesn’t expect that each Anzac day. Dear. Well, look, let’s move on to something that’s coming our way this weekend.
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It’s going to be a huge weekend with planes, trains and autos. One of my favourite weekends. So if you’re on your marks, get set, go. We’re going to have the annual Plains, Trains and Autos Festival. And it’s a huge weekend. It’s a long, the Labor Day long weekend this weekend. And it’s just a really great festival and it’s free. And I just encourage people to go on to the Eastwich Festival’s website. There’s just tons of tons of activities on. Certainly is. And I believe it’s what, the fourth year that you’ve run this? It is the fourth year. It’s on the
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for a long time. There are only limited tickets left for the main event on that Saturday at the Queensland Museum Rail Workshops could fully charged. Cause we are accepting about 8,000 people there on the Saturday. So if you haven’t got your tickets, get in now, there are still a few left. And if people love their cars, the classic car park and pose event is certainly gonna be one to go and see. Yeah, so they’re not, that’s been really popular. Steve and I will have the VC Commodore in there as well. We’re in the park and pose. And we’ll…
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like many people will watch the cars lapping and grab a bite to eat. It’s a really nice family atmosphere there on Saturday night. Yeah. And of course, whether it’s, you know, the Pioneer steam railway who do a great job with their diesel train rides on Saturday through to, you know, the Grandchester Model Live Steam Association. There’s something for, as you said, for everybody. There really is. Like if you love your trains, obviously QPSR have the diesel on the Saturday and.
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And for those that have been there, the Grandchester Live Model Steam Association, their locomotives are like little miniature ones, but they’re steam. And they’re really great to sit on and ride with the whole family and just a lot of fun. And Grandchester’s got a great pub out there as well. So it’s a great fun for the whole day. Yep. And then of course you can finish up the weekend on Monday being the holiday at the Queensland Retro Picnic. Yeah, we started this last year and it was hugely popular. The Queensland Retro Picnic at Evan Martyrson Park in Goodna had
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Hot Rods, Classic and Muscle Cars, bikes, as well as street food and music was there. And also on the Sunday up at Woodlands, they’re having a Queensland retro cruise for cars and coffee meet there as well. So tons of things for any car enthusiast, train enthusiast and plane enthusiast. Yeah, it is certainly a wonderful weekend of events. So check it out on Council’s website. Yeah, and I could just thank the RAF Base Anbili and also the Army at RAF Base Anbili.
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They’re providing a lot of equipment for the ground displays at the museum on Saturday and it’s really wonderful. There’s always some really quirky interesting things there as well so it’s not just civilian stuff but a lot of great military gear will be there as well. Yeah looking forward to seeing it all happen. Now I did notice too that you’ve been very busy personally getting out and about at a number of events. Some of our multicultural community are kicking up their heels too. Yeah there’ve been a lot of multicultural festivals in Ipswich at the
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We had the Grand Autumn Festival recently, which is the Filipino Australian community in Springfield. On the weekend, the Indian Council of Queensland, they had their traditional New Year’s Eve celebration as well. Look, we had the African Cup of Nations here as well. And I think we’ve had a few citizenship ceremonies as well. So we are having more and more people move to Ipswich as their place of choice to come in, has a great affordable lifestyle and a really, I guess, a family-friendly
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city to raise your family as well. Yep. And at the last census, I mean, Ipswich had 22 and a half thousand residents who spoke a language other than English. So it really showcases just how diverse our multicultural community is. Yeah, we have 253,000 residents in Ipswich and they come from 163 countries of origin and speak over 152 languages. So we’re having a lot of people coming over from India.
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from New Zealand, Pacific Islands and Africa as well. So it’s, you know, we’ve getting a real mix of people who are moving here. And can I just say, when we talk about diversity and inclusiveness, it’s a two-way street. And just like we saw so many come out from, who were born in other countries, but came out on Anzac Day to commemorate and honour and respect the diggers of the past as well. So it’s really great to see the community come together like that. Yep, it certainly is.
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Now, of course, it has been a very quick start back into the new term for the Council, undertaking a number of things, catching up with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a few other things. Yes, we’ve only been sworn in for a couple of weeks, but I’ve had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when he was in Brisbane, to discuss things with him. We also had the Honourable Kirsty McBain, who’s the Federal Local Government Minister, to talk to her about a lot of the cost shifting that has been going on to councils.
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You know, Council’s only received 3% of all taxes and just the necessity of the state and the federal governments to kick in their share for those big infrastructure projects. And also met with the Honourable Megan Scanlon, who’s the Queensland Government Minister for Public Works, Housing and Homelessness and Local Government. So just chatting with them on some of the projects that we really need to get going and hearing it switch.
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you know, the things of, you know, homelessness and that in our city, because I mean, we want to make sure everyone has got a great lifestyle. It has and obviously Council’s not funded for that, the state are, but it’s really important that we work very closely with the state to make sure we get those good services. And I guess for us as a Council, the last four years, we’ve been very focused on our advocacy on those big picture infrastructure issues that probably haven’t been done. So getting the $10 million to start off the Ixwich to Springfield
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Public Transport Project, we’ve now secured the $30 million for the North Iftish Reserve, which has been sitting there for a long time getting that. So you know we’re starting to get some of those wins from our dedicated efforts. Yeah and before we let you go, I know you had a very special memorial service at the RAAF Base in Amberley. It was great to see members of the number 100 squadron from World War II, the Beaufort aircraft team, who were finally recognised.
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Yeah, it was a very moving ceremony. There was, I guess, Twiggy Forest, if people don’t know about the fact that basically there was a repatriation of two World War II aircrew and a commemoration for two that were not found. So there were four of that crew for that Beaufort aircraft. So it was quite a moving ceremony and also had families for those four airmen.
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who perished and were missing in action and have only just been found. So it was quite a moving ceremony and I really appreciate the, and three of those four families were from South East Queensland as well. So it’s quite a few tears but it was a beautiful ceremony for everyone. Yeah missing for more than 80 years and two of them finally returned home. It is a great outcome that is for sure. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll look forward to doing it again next week when we get to talk all
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