BETTER TOGETHER CHRISTIE DOWNS

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:20): I rise today to commend a community group in my electorate, Better Together Christie Downs, for an excellent function that they held recently. Better Together Christie Downs is a group of residents and service providers who work in the Christie Downs area who decided that they wanted to do something about the sometimes bad reputation that Christie Downs has. Christie Downs is an excellent suburb. It is a little old now and some of the housing stock is not what it used to be. Some of the Housing SA houses, in particular, are on blocks that are a bit too big for the occupants to manage and it does need attention, and that is under consideration by the Urban Development Authority, which is meeting next week.

In the meantime, these residents decided that they have to promote what is good about Christie Downs, and there are very many things that are good about Christie Downs. It has a strong community spirit; it has excellent service provision within the area (it has a train station in the middle of it and it is next door to the Colonnades centre); and it is an ideal residential facility not very far from the beach. What was important about this day was the way both service providers and individual residents put on a fantastic day for the community to come out and enjoy. Fortunately, the weather decided it would behave itself, and this brought out about 500 people to enjoy the day.

The schools were represented—Christies Beach High School and Lonsdale Heights Primary School. Lonsdale Heights brought along an array of musical instruments for people to try as this little school is specialising in musical productions. Learning Together Christie Downs is a group that operates from Christie Downs Primary School where mothers and children can learn together. The ACH Group contributed, there was china painting with local resident Lee Sanders, and Liz's Little Layouts of miniature trains was contributed by another community resident.

Meals on Wheels conducted the barbeque and were very generous with the donation of a prize. I think they contributed the bike for the major children's raffle. The Smith Family from Morphett Vale provided assistance. The organisers particularly wanted to mention 605 Squadron Australian Air Force Cadets, who not only provided information during the day but also provided much unsolicited assistance to other stall holders, particularly during the pack-up. They are a group of young people who demonstrate what is really terrific in our community.

The day basically came out of thin air, with no funding and no paid employee solely dedicated to it, and was run particularly by Helen Ellis, a community leader in Christie Downs, and Linda Enright, who is a community development officer with the City of Onkaparinga, but people tell me she went well beyond her responsibilities and put in a lot of volunteer hours to make this event a success.

The Side Step Crew from Christies Beach High School were a particular attraction and ended up with a little squad of groupies afterwards, I am told, with people lining up to have their photos taken with them. This is very welcome, because all the members of the Side Step Crew are immigrants from non-Anglo countries. So it was quite clear that people—black, brown and brindled—are a welcome part of Christie Downs. In fact, a Sudanese family has been fairly prominent in the community centre, getting in and joining with community activities.

The supporters are really too numerous to fit in to this brief presentation, and I sincerely thank them all. Christie Downs is a wonderful place. It has great parks and recreation areas, good schools and good residents. It needs a bit of work, but it has the potential to be one of the leading suburbs of the state in the future.