Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you know, Deputy Speaker Hogan, Bankstown is the heart of my electorate, and Bankstown Sports Club is the heart of Bankstown. This year it turns 60. In February 1958 Bankstown District Cricket Association got together with a number of other sporting associations in the area and set up Bankstown Sports Club. To be a member of the club back then you had to qualify in two regards: first, you had to be a bloke and, second, you had to play sport. They purchased a local block of land in Bankstown at 8 Greenfield Parade—which was, at that point, an old Latter-day Saints hall and a consecrated church—and the club was off and running. The baptismal font, apparently, was a handy esky at the time!

A lot has changed in the last 60 years. Bankstown Sports Club is still on the same site, but it now takes up the whole block. And it's no longer for just a couple of hundred blokes. There are now 70,000 people who are members of Bankstown Sports Club. It's one of the biggest clubs in Australia. I said earlier that it's the heart of my community. It's the place where a lot of people go in Bankstown for a feed and a good night out. It's the place where Paul Keating went to celebrate the 'sweetest victory of all'—his famous 'true believers' speech that none of us on this side of the House will ever forget. And it's a place where local charities and local community organisations go to when they need help. It funds local aged-care centres, it purchases equipment for local schools and childcare centres, it purchases medical equipment for Bankstown hospital, it helps local disability groups, and it helps to fund more than 40 local sporting clubs in Bankstown.

In those 60 years, it's only had three CEOs. Emile McDonald ran the club for 22 years. John McKay ran it for 31 years. Now the boss is Mark Condi. Mark has only been in the job for about six years, but he's worked at Bankstown Sports Club for 25 years. He started 25 years ago picking up glasses and cleaning tables. Can I take this time to also give the board a rap. The board is led by John Murray. His predecessor was the late great Kevin McCormick OAM. He was a great man and a great mate, by the way, of Paul Keating's father, Matt Keating. Can I thank the staff and everybody who has worked at Bankstown Sports Club over the years and helped make it what it is, which is a fantastic community asset, a real community club. Can I wish everybody involved a happy 60th birthday and many, many years to come.