Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's rare in this place to rise with unalloyed joy. Tonight I wish to relate a story and thank a young man in my home state of Western Australia: young Austin Appelbee, a 13-year-old who swam for four hours to save his family. Young Austin, his brother, his sister and his mum were having a normal, fun day, like so many thousands of Western Australians in Geographe Bay, out on a kayak and paddleboards. This really struck home for me because my kids were doing exactly that a few short weeks ago. When they went out, it was beautiful and serene, as Geographe Bay normally is, but things started to turn a bit rough. They got caught in a current, and it became very clear that they weren't going to be able to get back to shore. That is when the mum, Joanne, had to make the absolutely terrifying decision to ask her 13-year-old son to head back to shore in his kayak.

Young Austin took the task on and headed off, but the wind picked up and the sea was getting rougher and rougher. The kayak overturned numerous times and took on water. In the end he had to abandon not just his kayak but his life jacket because he knew the only way he was going to get to shore was to swim it, and swim it he did. He managed to make it back to shore, raise the alarm and get search and rescue out to help his mum, his brother, Beau, and his sister, Grace. They were found, luckily—very luckily—14 kilometres offshore at 8.30 pm. What an absolutely terrifying experience for them all. Austin, mate, you're a deadset legend and you deserve a shout-out in this parliament. Well done.