Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:55): On 20 April, also known as 4/20, around the world people gather peacefully to have picnics to rally for cannabis law reform. This has been happening in Melbourne for decades. This month, when people went down to Flagstaff Gardens to peacefully rally around drug law reform and call for changes to cannabis laws in this state, they were met with police on horses, they were met with sniffer dogs and they were wrestled to the ground and stripsearched. They were meeting peacefully for a picnic in Flagstaff Gardens. It was an extraordinary sight. It was a...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:58): I have been asked to use my members statement call on members and to encourage members to remember Bob Keeper. Father Bob has relaunched his Bob Keeper appeal for this Easter, and this year he is hoping to expand his open pantry project, which is out at Banksia Gardens in Broadmeadows. Currently it helps 400 families fill their pantries twice a week. He is hoping that this year his appeal will be able to extend that assistance to another 100 families. These families are largely refugee families, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon. Father Bob...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:50): Medicinal cannabis is the only prescription medication that if taken by a patient excludes them from driving. It is not because it is more dangerous. In fact with many CBD medicines that is quite the opposite. It is because of stigma and misunderstanding—like the misunderstanding that the average medicinal cannabis patient in Victoria is a 52-year-old woman with a chronic illness for which conventional medicines have not worked. Now, I am not suggesting we should allow people who are impaired to drive, I am saying that people who have been prescribed a legal prescription medication and...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:50): I was very pleased to attend Her Place on Monday, and this was part of International Women’s Day. Her Place is actually a museum. It is in the old Menzies building. It is down on Clarendon Street, and it is a beautiful little hidden gem. But I was there to look at solutions for women’s homelessness, and we know that particularly older women are the fastest growing cohort of people experiencing homelessness. We know that COVID hit women harder than our male colleagues, and that was in employment and that was in earning capacity, but...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:53): This month I was very pleased to launch the Reason Party’s campaign to promote Victoria’s fantastic, magnificent fashion industry. It is internationally recognised, and it is a cultural and economic gem of Victoria. We are also using this campaign to highlight the appalling, unsustainable textile waste in Australia. We launched with a panel discussion with local designers and stylists. It is called F*** Fast Fashion: buy local, buy ethical, buy less. We will be running this over the coming months with a whole range of themed events. To get Parliament into the spirit of this and...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) Incorporated pursuant to order of Council of 7 September 2021: Last Wednesday, along with Minister Leane, I was very pleased to attend the launch of the Chatty Cafe project at the Chatty Cafe at Sandy Beach Kiosk in Sandringham. The Chatty Cafe Scheme aims to get people chatting to build and encourage social connections within the local community, and to help reduce social isolation and loneliness. Australian venues that sign up offer ‘Have a Chat’ tables—a space for people to talk, whether it is for 5 minutes or an hour of good friendly conversation, while you drink a brew of your...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:28): I would like to echo Ms Maxwell’s gratitude to all of the staff here and congratulate you, President, and the team for managing an incredibly difficult year. I think you have done it with good humour, but also you have managed to keep us all very safe this year. On behalf of I am sure my team, but I am sure on behalf of many others here we are very grateful for that. I would also like to congratulate today the New Zealand government for legalising pill testing. In the words of the health minister Andrew...

  Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (12:58): I rise today to congratulate and thank the Save Our Scene group, who recently secured $20 million in support to save live music in Victoria and in Northern Metropolitan. I was happy to champion this cause directly to the Minister for Creative Industries and in this house. Live music is what makes Melbourne Melbourne. This package will save our favourite venues and fund new festivals and shows. I would like to thank Simone Ubaldi from the Croxton Park Hotel, who created Save Our Scene. She was a champion advocate with the government, and she is clearly...

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (12:43): I would like to rise to pay tribute to a truly magnificent man, Dr Rodney Syme, without whom Victoria would not have passed our voluntary assisted dying laws, which led to similar laws being passed in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and hopefully New South Wales soon. Rodney was a friend and a mentor and, I know, someone who was respected by many in this chamber. The people of Victoria are the beneficiaries of Rodney Syme’s advocacy and activism, and that is his legacy. Rodney died last week at the age of 86 after...

  Ms PATTEN: And, finally, I would like to recognise an amazing larrikin; a wonderful and generous son, father and grandfather; a bloke who has been a protester, a publisher, a lobbyist, a florist, a transcendental meditation teacher, a friend and a frenemy to many. Happy birthday, Robbie Swan.  

Fiona Patten MP Leader of Reason Member for Northern Metropolitan Members statement 14/10/21

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