Soheil Abedian AM-Gold Coast Business Excellence Hall of Fame

Born in 1949 in Persia, the Gold Coast’s very own shining star is who I would like to speak about today. He came from nothing—a familiar story on the Gold Coast, where the entrepreneurial spirit was born and resides today. He studied at the University of Graz, graduating with a master’s degree in architecture in 1979. His family arrived in Australia in 1981, and he initially started a business selling carpets with his brother, Sep. He began his development career with a single house and rose to become Chairman of the Sunland Group, where, among many other developments, including Palazzo Versace, he built the tallest residential tower in the southern hemisphere—Q1, a sister to the one he built in Dubai. He and I have a great deal in common. We have a passion in our hearts for Surfers Paradise, for the future of its regeneration as the face of Gold Coast tourism and for the future of its residents and visitors. We have a passion for our community, and we care deeply, as does his wife, about our community on the Gold Coast.The Abedians’ contribution to Moncrieff and the wider Gold Coast community is to be commended. Through the Abedian Foundation and its scholarships for 80 students per year into Gold Coast universities, including my own alma mater—Griffith University—and Bond University, they are changing people’s lives. He’s received an Order of Australia and the keys to the Gold Coast city, and last Saturday, at the Star, the Gold Coast business community came together to induct him into the Business Excellence Hall of Fame. Soheil Abedian is a good man. He’s a gracious man. He’s a great man. He’s a man of faith—the Baha’i faith—a man of courage, a man of great principles, a man of determination and a man of compassion. I congratulate him, his wife, Anne, his children, Sahba, Mona and Tom, and his nephew, Khian, for the great honour that the home of the entrepreneurial spirit has bestowed upon Soheil Abedian AM.