Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to be able to inform the House that the long-awaited rebuild of the Eden Hills Scouts' hall and the adjacent Blackwood Rotary building has begun. The existing Eden Hills Scouts' hall was built 60 years ago and has had very good use in the intervening decades. But, when I first visited Eden Hills Scouts, Akela showed me their wooden floor with bright pink duct tape around holes and weaknesses in the floor, to alert the children not to jump or walk on those spots. Unbelievable! This was a well-loved and well-used building, well and truly past its use-by date and now posing a risk to its young users.

The scouts and their families have been fundraising for a decade and managed to raise $100,000 through barbecues and tree planting, and I am very proud to say that the federal government and the City of Mitcham have come together for the rest. The new facility will include a community hall, a meeting room, a commercial-grade kitchen and storage, and will also be home to the Rotary Club of Blackwood, which is currently occupying a 30-year-old tin shed adjacent to the hall. There are lots of very excited cubs and scouts and rovers, not to mention Rotary members and the local community, all anticipating new facilities, which we hope will be open in late July this year.