Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Neighbourhood and community centres are very vital parts of our communities. Often, you will see that neighbourhood and community centres, when there's an issue in the area or surrounding that area, are usually used as meeting hubs to raise issues or to have public meetings or to get the neighbourhood, the suburb and the community informed about particular issues. They play an important role in our electorates. Across Australia, particularly in our regions, local neighbourhood houses and community centres provide essential social services to people who might otherwise have nowhere to turn, with information hubs and with community meetings informing people. As a member of parliament, I've used many, many community hubs and neighbourhood houses and community centres for forums for informing people—for example, informing people after the budget of what's in the budget for pensioners or informing people what's in the budget for health. We've done many of these forums over the years, usually in a particular community centre in my electorate.

One of the great community centres in my electorate is the fantastic Western Youth Centre, which operates as a community centre. It has everything from kinder-gym to sporting clubs, people using the facilities, drop-in centres and a whole range of things, and we just announced $7.3 million in funding at the last election for the upgrade of this centre, because it provides such a vital role in the community. Another one is the Unley Community Centre, and, again, they were granted over nearly $2 million so they can actually get some infrastructure in place and be able to house their community centre, but also, importantly, they have an Unley community museum which allows the public from the area to exhibit certain historical items. It gets the community involved. It was great news that we announced that funding, and, in fact, we went to the first sod turning not that long ago. This is a way of supporting and ensuring that community centres are viable and that they have the proper infrastructure in place, and this Labor government is certainly focused in that area.

When there's a crisis in some places—maybe not so much in city electorates like mine, but out in the regions—community centres are the go-to place, and we've seen it. When we look at the floods and fires, we constantly see community centres housing people through emergency housing, feeding people and just being the centre where they will get the information of where they can get services from or being where, perhaps, Centrelink turns up for extra payments et cetera for those people who are in crisis. In many communities, especially outside the major hubs, they are the only places providing relief and emergency support.

What makes this even more remarkable is that these centres are driven by people—by people that are involved in the community and by staff and volunteers who work tirelessly and selflessly, not just providing those emergency services that I spoke about but every day in communities—everything from cooking classes to kinder gyms to mums drop-in centres and parents drop-in sporting clubs, a whole range of things. I've seen it when I move around my electorate and see the many different community centres—for example, Payinthi, the Prospect community centre, which is a great drop-in centre. It is also housed next to the library, so people can go in, do research and meet with other like-minded people. The Unley Community Centre, which I spoke about, has a variety of activities—social groups, cafes focusing on seniors and community connections. Then we have the Goodwood Community Centre under the auspices of the Unley council. It's a little bit separate but offers a variety of activities, social groups and cafes. It also houses the Greek Pensioners Society, which meets every so often, with 100 to 150 people. They have this massive cook-up of lunch. Many ministers have come through there with me when I've been taking them through the electorate, and I've got to say they all leave very well fed. Deputy Speaker, if you're ever in my electorate, please come along.

The Fullarton Park Community Centre is a magnificent centre in my electorate that offers a whole range of events and art exhibitions. There's the Kilburn Community Centre and, of course, the Glandore Community Centre, which houses Coast FM, a voluntary radio station. So community centres play a very important role. (Time expired)

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