STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (16:27): Last Monday, I had the great honour of joining with my community in the south-west to put in place an early pregnancy loss memorial. This was one of those wonderful community events where the community came together to recognise a need. It was led by the Rotary club and by Janet Blackley, in particular, and I commend her for the way the that Rotary dealt with this very, very sensitive subject.

I also commend Karen Johnson from the Warrnambool Cemetery trust. Those two organisations and others recognised the need in the community for people to be able to grieve early pregnancy loss. Local tradespeople put a memorial in the Tooram cemetery, where grieving parents can come and pay their respects.

It's a beautiful, sculpture of a tree. You can even place a butterfly or a leaf on this memorial. To everyone that was there who had suffered early pregnancy loss and wanted to be able to, in one way or another, deal with their loss, it was a very, very special occasion.