House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1) 52 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Adjournment Debate Neighbourhood Watch NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH Mr PICCOLO House of Assembly Light Mr PICCOLO (Light) (17:23): With the few moments left to me to speak today, I would like to take this opportunity to speak about a special group of volunteers in the community; that is, those volunteers who are active in the various Neighbourhood Watch programs throughout my area. Today, I would like to talk about Neighbourhood Watch in the Barossa region. On Tuesday night last week I attended the inaugural Neighbourhood Watch awards for the Barossa region. The awards night was organised by Senior Constable Ian Skewes and his wife, Susie Skewes, and was also attended by Deputy Commissioner Gary Burns. It was a very good night. There were probably 140 people who attended the evening in Gawler, and the purpose of the awards night was to acknowledge the contribution made by a whole range of volunteers in making our community safer. The award night was split into three sections: police, community and business volunteers. The police award acknowledged the contribution made by local police. One local police officer (I think it was Constable Chris King) was acknowledged for the contribution he has made to a whole range of local Neighbourhood Watch schemes. Under 'community and business', a number of community members and business people—who are not part of the watch but who make a contribution in supporting the watch either through photocopying newsletters or providing other prizes, etc., and support for the Neighbourhood Watch groups—were acknowledged, as well as the volunteers themselves. These are the people who, day in and day out, do small things but important things—and, when you add them up, they are very important things—to support and to make our community safer. A number of volunteers were acknowledged. Many have been involved with Neighbourhood Watch for many years and rightfully were acknowledged for their contribution. The Neighbourhood Watch members do things like prepare and distribute newsletters, and they do other small projects in promoting home security and home safety, etc. A number of them are involved in anti-graffiti work around the town, which is very important. If nothing else, a lot of these people just literally walk the streets and get to know their communities and, through that effort, they bring people outside their homes and build that sense of community (which is very important) into supporting and building up the Neighbourhood Watch program. The Neighbourhood Watch program is about community safety. It is about individual members of our community working with local police and other agencies, again, making a contribution to make our communities safe. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all those volunteers who won awards on that night. Time expired. At 17:26 the house adjourned until Thursday 25 November 2010 at 10:30.