Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to recognise an intrepid lady of the O'Connor Wheatbelt who supports the Royal Flying Doctor Service by traversing huge distances on foot. The travels of Ann McLeish include walking north-west from her hometown of Narrogin to the state capital of Perth—a hike of 200 kilometres. Back in 2014, Ann completed her longest walk, a 270 kilometre walk from Narrogin to Albany. And last year, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, she stepped out 202 kilometres, social distancing all the way, from Narrogin to Newdegate via Wagin.

I met up with Ann two weekends ago at one of WA's premier agricultural events, the Wagin Woolorama. It's Wagin's 118th agricultural show. Over the two-day Woolorama, Ann raised $4,078 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service by rattling her tin at the gate. That formidable effort is a hint that her real achievement is not the thousands of kilometres she has trekked from town to town since she slipped on her sports shoes in 2008. As impressive as those distances are, Ann's great legacy is the hundreds of thousands of dollars that she has raised for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The sum of her fundraising to date is an extraordinary $218,000.

At the Woolorama, Ann told me that the Flying Doctor became her favourite charity after her brother, son and granddaughter were transported by the service. That's pretty typical in many remote areas of my electorate of O'Connor, where everyone—whether they be individuals, their families or friends—has at sometime relied on the RFDS. In 2019-20 the service flew eight million kilometres in Western Australia and transported 9,012 patients. In the Goldfields region alone, 1,624 patients have been assisted; in the Wheatbelt, where Ann lives, there were 735; in the South West region, 574; and in the Great Southern, where I'm from, 799 patients were transported. It was the flying doctor's busiest year ever in the west, and I thank them for their service.

That's why Ann, who turns 76 on Thursday, still pounds the pavements and hikes the highways of O'Connor. Rather than slowing down, she's picking up the pace with a series of shorter, snappier walks planned from Dongara to Mingenew, Mingenew to Three Springs and from Lake Grace to Newdegate—each a lazy 50 kilometres or so. And, unlike the water from the salt lakes passed on many of Ann's walks, not one cent that she raises will evaporate in administration costs. Every dollar sourced from her sure and steady steps will land where it's needed—at the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which just goes to show that, in fundraising as in life, it's one thing to talk the talk but it's quite another to walk the walk.