Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jim Connaghan, Ken Finlay, John Forsyth, Pat Esse and Kalie Nookes are committee members of the Keenagers. Keenagers are retired people who play table tennis. They play table tennis at Latrobe Leisure Moe Newborough. A long time ago the government of the day promised to spend $1 million on a new section for the centre. There's a little problem that came up: we lost that election campaign, so that promise was never fulfilled. But we've never forgotten the promise. At the moment, because of the changes that are happening in Latrobe Valley I've got a proposition to upgrade the centre so that the Keenagers get a centre or a room for table tennis. It can be used for other things, but basically table tennis will be the focus.

These people who play table tennis range from their 50s up to 90 years of age, and my connection with them goes back to Jim Connaghan, who came to see me one day and said: 'We carry out these huge tables every time we want to play table tennis and then we have to put them away at the end of the day. It'd be great if we had our own centre.' So I'm promoting once again the opportunity for the whole centre to be rebuilt, revamped and re-established so that the Keenagers can have their day in the sun.