Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is so much terrible news to report to the chamber, but I want to take the opportunity to bring some good news—that is about the official reopening of the John Houston Memorial Swimming Pool after a refurbishment. Its reopening, on 19 December at 11 am, was a remarkable community event. This was made possible by $4.2 million in funding from the federal government under the Growing Regions Program, combined with $3 million from the state government of New South Wales, funding of $200,000 from local ratepayers and $320,000 raised by a fantastic local woman called Gail Munn—part of the package of the entire renewal, which is now a signature for anybody who's going to or through Hay.

This pool is a consequence of John Houston, who became concerned about a problem in his community when he was a kid growing up in Hay: kids were drowning in the river and something needed to be done about it. John didn't sit back, whinge about it and wait for somebody to come and solve the problem. He decided that he was going to do something and formed the Hay swimming pool committee, which fundraised for 10 years to get the pool built. That's what great citizens across this country do. They love our country. They love their community. They find ways to make life better and to connect us as fellow Australians.

John Houston showed that, and he showed us that we can solve our community's problems. We don't leave it to someone else; we need to work together. There is nobody else. We are the sum total of the resources of this nation, and we need to do things together for our own collective benefit. The John Houston Memorial Pool is a shining example of identifying a problem, having a dream to make it better and competing fairly against other projects around the country to acquire federal money to make this country even better.