Adjournment Debate

Light Electorate

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (16:43): I rise to speak in support of the adjournment debate and in doing so I would just like to raise a few matters of interest to my community. There are two items I would like to speak about today. The first is that, over the Easter weekend, up to 10,000 music enthusiasts are set to descend on the Town of Gawler, and in particular Trinity College, Gawler, to attend the 2016 Yamaha National Band Championships. Trinity College are hosting this event on behalf of the South Australian Band Association over the four days, with brass and concert bands performing to an audience of family friends, fellow band musicians and the general public.

According to the event organisers, the championships are the biggest band competition in Australia and, as I said, are likely to attract up to 10,000 spectators, with about 50 bands expected to participate from across Australia and also overseas. The site coordinator and music director of bands and ensembles at Trinity College, Mr Bruce Raymond, has said that band members will come from overseas to compete and are expected to stay on and visit the Barossa and surrounding regions.

The event will open on the Friday evening (Good Friday) with the open section of the brass bands' hymn and test piece, while on Saturday the open and junior concert bands play their hymn, test, own choice and march. Mr Raymond said there would be a parade of bands on Saturday morning, with up to 40 bands expected to participate, showcasing their marching skills and their music. The highlight of the Monday program will be the Champion of Champions solo competition.

On behalf of the band competition, I am happy to say that I worked with them to lobby for some funding for these championships and I have been advised that they have been successful in getting a grant under the arts regional development fund and, hopefully, those few funds will help them to actually host the event. Importantly, with 10,000 visitors to Gawler and the Barossa region, the economic impact on the greater Gawler area will be immense in terms of accommodation, hospitality and the like.

Also, I am advised that the event will be streamed across the world, which will promote the town and the state to a bigger world audience which will, in itself, attract future tourists to the region. It is anticipated that the championships will provide an economic benefit to the region of approximately $4.5 million through the spending of domestic overnight and day visitors along with international overnight visitors. We congratulate the South Australia Band Association and Trinity College for hosting the event.

The other matter I would like to raise in support of the adjournment is to commend a particular program that is run by both Flinders and Adelaide universities' medical schools. In this case, it is the Barossa Valley Parallel Rural Community Curriculum and I understand there are similar programs run in other regions such as the Riverland and other parts of the state. This joint program run by the medical schools gives students hands-on training and experience in rural general practice. I attended the welcoming event held in the Barossa just recently.

The program is an innovative and internationally recognised program for future doctors, designed around a full year of clinical placement within a rural practice, combined with an integrated curriculum focusing on rural health. Students are encouraged to embrace and become involved in the communities assigned to them during the program, so that they become active members of their host communities. The program is designed to give students the opportunity to experience living and working in a rural community with the hope that they may choose to work and also reside in rural communities when they become qualified doctors.

At the launch of the program, I noted that one of the doctors in training, Damian Drew, was an ex-Trinity College and Gawler boy. He has come in as an adult learner, having acquired a PhD and a whole range of other qualifications in universities here and overseas. He has come back to study medicine. He completed a Bachelor of Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, graduating top of his class, and then did a PhD in molecular biology at the University of Adelaide.

He spent some years as a post-doctoral scientist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and is now doing his medical training in the Barossa. The PRCC is renowned for providing hands-on training and providing students with a great deal of clinical experience. It is a great way of training our medical students to ensure that we have qualified GPs in our rural communities.