LE CORNU, MRS ROBYN

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (15:35): I did listen with great interest to the member's contribution. As we all know, we have really many, many dedicated volunteers in our community, and today specifically I want to talk about the outstanding contributions of an extremely dedicated individual. Her name is Mrs Robyn Le Cornu. I actually first met her when she was chairperson of the then Ross Smith Secondary School. She was its chairperson of the governing council.

I am sure that members will be interested in this because we do have some quite dedicated and unique volunteers out there, but over the years Robyn has continued to impress me, I must say, with her energy and her enthusiasm and certainly her enormous capacity to lend a hand. In 2011, just last year, Robyn was presented with the Sports SA Volunteer Award. This award recognises an individual who has made a significant contribution to the sports industry in a voluntary capacity.

Robyn certainly has had an outstanding impact on community sport, given that she has been volunteering for 50 years, and I think that is an admirable contribution of her time and certainly a true indication of her dedication and passion. One of Robyn's greatest passions is cricket, and she has an outstanding 50 years of service just to Cricket Australia. Her dedication and commitment to cricket over the past five decades has been tireless and, I am sure we agree, admirable, to say the least.

Cricket Australia recently rewarded her 50 years of service with a trip to Melbourne so that she could attend the Volunteer Recognition Program, at which she received one of the 2012 Allan Border medals. Robyn's contributions in the role of coach, umpire and administrator have provided Cricket Australia with an enormous amount of expertise and support, and it has been able to count on her for decades. She has regularly taken up a position behind the stumps as an umpire, and she has been a South Australian Cricket Association accredited umpire since 1973.

She has coached junior cricketers at many different levels, including primary school (in fact, one in my electorate just recently), high school, junior grade boys' teams and state female under-age teams. Most importantly, Robyn can take pride in knowing that she has inspired many other females to become involved in cricket. She is still involved in the game as a player and is one of the few grade cricketers who has played in every decade since the 1960s.

It is not only cricket that is certainly better off due to Robyn's voluntary service, her passion for myriad other sports, I think, is just really astounding. Somehow she has found time to participate in and help other sports groups, such as basketball, badminton, hockey, netball, mini Olympics, multiskills, scooter hockey (I am not sure what that is), tennis and volleyball.

Mr Gardner interjecting:

Mrs GERAGHTY: Okay, right. I had better get padded up for that—I think I already am. Robyn is a warm and very kind-natured volunteer who is a great credit not only to cricket but to South Australian sport in general. The South Australian Cricket Association has been exceptionally lucky to have the pleasure of dealing with her for so many years, as have many other sporting associations, clubs and schools.

Robyn's tireless involvement and enthusiasm for sport has inspired and benefitted women and men and girls and boys, and she is, undoubtedly, a great role model and deserving recipient of the award. I am also extremely proud to call her my friend and I applaud her for her commendable contribution to sport. I know that while she is fit, willing and able she will be contributing for many years to come.