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

I rise today to talk about an event I held in my electorate to salute volunteers in the local area. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tom Koutsantonis, the state Minister for Volunteers, and also Ursula Stephens, the federal Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion, who is responsible for volunteers, for coming and making this event a real success. We had a number of volunteers who were nominated and I would like to go through those to salute them for the great service they do for the local community.

We had John Drew, Don Dixon, who collects cans for the southern suburbs and donates the proceeds to cancer research, Steve Cox from the South Adelaide Panthers Football Club, John Richardson, who is the chairperson of the Happy Valley Community Child Care Centre, Maureen ‘Gidget’ Ledgard from the Rotary club of McLaren Vale, Matthew Long from the Flinders Medical Centre, Lester McInerney from the Hackham RSL, Delia Conlon and Luz McVeigh from the Goodwood Community Centre, Merilyn Pfeiffer from the Happy Valley Tennis Club, Kay Wickes from Meals on Wheels at the Aldinga branch, Hazel Splawinski from the Noarlunga district seniors club, Paul Murray from the HUB gymnastics club, Joan Harris from the Morphett Vale Neighbourhood Watch, from the Scouts Dianne Broughton, John Bryker, Debbie Jiggins, Margaret Featherstone, Andrew Thomas and Bernie Jacques and, finally, Graham Thompson and Mark Bradley from the Hackham football club.

These volunteers all work in a whole variety of places, dedicating their time and effort to their local communities. As you heard, there was a range of different ages from right across the age spectrum, with Mr Matthew Long being the youngest. These are people who give their time, efforts and not some service in length of years. There was more than 25 years of service from some of these individuals. For others, it is the number of hours they do each week. All of these people contribute significantly to ensuring that the southern suburbs have vibrant community groups, whether they be service groups such as Meals on Wheels and Rotary or sports clubs to allow our young people to have sporting activities in the area.

I would like to thank everyone for coming. It was a great success. All of these volunteers were supported by their friends and families. I was very pleased to be able to put on this event to recognise the significant contribution. We are hoping to do it again in the future because these volunteers are critically important to our local area in ensuring that we have a vibrant community in the south of Adelaide.