Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the Sunday before last I had the great pleasure of going to the SANFL grand final and watching the Central Districts Football Club, the Bulldogs, play Glenelg. Centrals have played in the last nine grand finals and we stormed home to take our seventh flag. The scores, for the House’s information, were Centrals 17.11.113 points to Glenelg 10.11.71 points. It was a smashing win.

I particularly want to mention four of the six rookie premiership players, who were from the Barossa Light and Gawler football league, which is the league that covers the majority of the country areas in my electorate. Those four players are Brayden O’Hara, who used to play for Gawler Central, Jonathon Giles, who played for Kapunda and my old footy team the Bombers, James Moss, who played for Willaston, and Matthew Westhoff, who played for Tanunda and who kicked three goals during the grand final.

Of course all of the premiership players were absolute champions including the coach, Roy Laird. It is an excellent club. It is the backbone of the community in Elizabeth and the rest of the northern suburbs. We certainly have to congratulate the players, the president, Tom Zorich, the vice president, Glen Armstrong, the board of directors, CEO Kris Grant, all the coaching and support staff and the members of the club, who make these grand finals possible. I think the win underlines the importance of sport, footy in particular, to the people of the north. It underlines one of the reasons to be proud of the northern suburbs.

There has been some negative press about the northern suburbs in the last year and I think it is a great pity because we have many reasons other than the premiership to be proud. We are home to 70 per cent of South Australia’s manufacturing industry. We are a major commercial and retail centre and we are set to grow into the future. The northern suburbs are really the engine room which is powering South Australia’s economic growth. It is a region that is poised to reap the benefits of the expansion of South Australia’s mining and defence industries. Some of the examples of those industries are the mining accommodation and services company, which has a multimillion dollar manufacturing plant at Edinburgh Parks and supplies accommodation services, small huts to live in and other housing, to the mining and resources sectors, Olympic Dam and other mines in the north.

There is also the Steel Building System International company at Elizabeth West. It recently announced a deal worth more that $100 million to expand its business to the United Arab Emirates. It has a unique steel building system that is used for rapid-built, low-cost housing and is eyeing expansion in South Australia in response to the growth of mining in the north of the state. There is also Levett Engineering. Paul Levett started his one-man engineering business in his back shed in Elizabeth in 1989. He now has 39 contracts to supply Lockheed Martin with airframe components for the $300 billion F35 Joint Strike Fighter project, which is the world’s biggest collaborative defence project.

Most recently, and this is something I have spoken on in the Main Committee, Holden has launched its seven millionth car, which has rolled off the line. It was great to be there with the workers of that plant to see that red Commodore roll off the line. We hope there will be many more.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It only came second at Bathurst.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, second at Bathurst. You cannot win everything. But we will have from 2011 a superbase that will host the Australian Army’s 7th Battalion mechanised battalion group at Edinburgh—a 1,200 strong battalion that is bringing more than $700 million worth of new capital work into the area. That includes a new combined Army-Air Force mess as well as many other medical, fitness and community facilities. There are going to be huge spin-offs for the local retail and housing sectors. We have the Playford North urban renewal project and the NEXY road contract. (Time expired)