Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would just like to pay tribute to three exceptional sportspeople in my electorate of Kingston. I want to mention firstly Alice Whiley, who is a lifesaver at Moana Surf Life Saving Club. She is off to the national titles this year in March to compete in the areas that she regularly competes in, which are the iron person, the swim and the board. Alice has been competing since she was under seven years old and has been selected from her club to go and compete in the national titles. I was able to ring Alice the other day to congratulate her on being one of the local sporting champions in my electorate who have received a grant from the federal government to go towards the cost of competing. Competing in the sport of your choice can often be costly, especially if you are going to state or national championships. I am very pleased that I was able to ring Alice and let her know that the federal government was able to assist her in some of those costs to enable her to compete at a national level.

I was also able to ring Shani Copley. She is also a surf lifesaver and is going to be competing in the national championships. I have not been able to speak to Shani, who is 14. She was at school when I rang, but I did speak with her mum, who was incredibly proud. She said that Shani is a very passionate person when it comes to surf lifesaving. She is interested not only in the sporting side but also in the helicopter rescues and the paramedic side and wants to train as a paramedic because of her interest in surf lifesaving. She has also won state champion lifesaver this year and she has just been awarded that. Her mum said that she was very much looking forward to the money that the federal government could provide to buy a new ski paddle. That will be very important for her to be able to compete in the national championships. She is at the South Port Surf Life Saving Club.

I was also able to ring Craig Nicoll, who was granted $500 as part of the local sporting heroes. He is a swimmer and he is off to the national age championships. Ironically, his coach is the same coach who coached me in swimming, although I do not think I was quite as talented as Craig is. He has been swimming for only four years but in that time he has come along in leaps and bounds. I would like to congratulate everyone. There were a lot of nominees for this grant program who were all very worthy. Unfortunately, there can only be a few successful ones and they are the three people who were successful.