6th June Engineer's speech

Chris Koureas's speech on behalf of the Engineers Society

SUEUA would like to congratulate Ben Lunde. Last Month Lunde became Australia’s first ever indigenous Electrical Engineer. Ben is also the first indigenous engineering graduate at UNSW.

Over the last few weeks we have had series of seminars with the careers centre. These have been a resounding success and it is evident that the Clubs and Societies program has had a real effect on the prospects of students.

Sueua echoes Engineers Australia’s commendation of the federal budget. The weaknesses of the budget, however, are the lack of spending on infrastructure and professional skills development. Bob Carr should be congratulated for raising the prospect of Nuclear
power for this state.

Currently in Iraq an Australian born engineer is being held hostage by militant activist extremists. Mr Wood is over there as an engineering contractor restoring water, power and transport. Given the essential work which Australian engineers are performing for the people of Iraq and for that case Afghanistan, it is imperative that Australia send more troops to Iraq to ensure the safety of our citizens and to ensure the timely restoration of Iraqi infrastructure.

Our union board candidate Jackson Fan was announced as the 6th electee. The appeal against him was turned down as it was totally baseless and we recommend that this sort of racial and sexual vilification has no part in this institution.