Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Volunteers make an enormous contribution to Australia. They are an integral part of our communities and the backbone of our nation. Volunteers deliver enormous economic and psychosocial benefits to our nation, and the truly remarkable thing is that they do this because they care about their communities and those who live in them.

Whilst delivering these services to people in communities they develop skills that they can utilise in other parts of their lives. The week of 11 to 17 May was National Volunteer Week, and the theme for National Volunteer Week this year was 'Give Happy Live Happy'. Research has shown that volunteers are happier and healthier, and sleep better. In addition, they make those they work with happier. So volunteering can be supported on many levels.

I was thinking about my contribution to this debate and then I started thinking about those organisations within my electorate that constantly give their time, such as Rotary and Lions. Over the last week I visited many of those organisations, not Rotary or Lions, and I had two surf-lifesaving presentations last weekend. One was at Catherine Hill Bay and one was at Redhead.

At Catherine Hill Bay, which is one of the smaller clubs in the Shortland electorate, there were 4,975.75 volunteer hours given. That is valued at $99,515. At Redhead there were 4,144 patrol hours. That was valued at $82,880 worth of volunteer patrol hours. The branch has 24-hour emergency responses with 68 ambulance calls, 391 rescues, 19,165 preventive actions and over 687,450 beach attendances with volunteers working 71,500 volunteer hours. That was valued at $2.5 million for the four councils within the Hunter region. As well as the actual volunteerism and protecting people whilst they are on the beach, they make an enormous economic contribution.

I talked about Rotary and Lions. When I was at the presentation at Redhead Surf Lifesaving Club, Charlestown Lions donated a cheque to Redhead surf club to help them buy a defibrillator. Here we have two volunteer organisations coming together to support their community.

During the last week, I have not been in parliament. I attended the Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie, and there were seven members that were given awards. Those seven people had 130 years of volunteering. The local Belmont Anglican Church provides support to grandparents bringing up their grandchildren, and they do that as volunteers. Yesterday I popped into an Australia's Biggest Morning Tea organised by Kylie, and there were families from out in the Belmont at the Belmont Sporties Men's Bowling Club all coming along to donate to cancer research. She did that as a volunteer.

RSL clubs, coaches for sporting teams, Meals on Wheels, aged care, schools, hospitals—the list is endless. Every organisation within our communities draws some sort of support from volunteers. In recent storms in the Hunter and Central Coast the SES and Rural Fire Service provided such vital services and helped people in their hours of need.

Volunteers make an incredible contribution to our communities. We need to recognise them, pay tribute to all the work that they do on an unpaid basis and thank them for making our society, our country what it is today.

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