Christie Downs Community Facilities

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:43): I rise today to firstly speak about an important issue for our beautiful southern community and how, together with community members, it is being progressed. Our train stations and our trains are so important to so many of us. They connect us to work, to study, to family and friends and to other parts of our city. Our station is a meeting place that brings us together and the trains and our stations give us possibilities of places and people to visit and to explore. All our stations must be places that people feel safe coming to, that people want to come to, that serve us and that are great meeting hubs for our community.

Thank you to the many people in Christie Downs who have been raising their voice about the need for us to have a station at Christie Downs that is safe, accessible and welcoming. I have been calling for improvements to this station since just before having the privilege of being elected. I have been calling for a station that is the welcoming place that we want it to be and I know that others have been calling for this for decades. We know that we effect change when our collective voice is strong, loud and consistent. Thank you to all of our Christie Downs community members who have contributed to that strong collective voice.

Last year, I held a first community meeting to bring Christie Downs residents together to hear more about what they would like to see. Since then, a remarkable group of Christie Downs community members have been working very closely with me on this. Thank you to Craig Gordon, Llewellyn Jones, Connie Giacoumis, Allison Emmerson, Jules Ferguson and Artie Ferguson for their advocacy for our community. Their work has been crucial to getting to where we are now.

I am very proud that our South Australian Labor government has heard their voices and committed $1.12 million to make improvements at the Christie Downs Railway Station, improvements which will include a CCT upgrade, landscaping, a lighting upgrade, station enhancements, improvements to our ramps to the station, facilities for bike storage and pedestrian crossing works. I am also delighted that this funding will include a community mosaic project and the set-up of a rail care group so that we can maintain our station as a community.

Last Saturday, I met again with many community members about these agreed improvements and how they would like to see them implemented at the station. It was excellent to see so many people interested and committed to making our shared spaces enjoyable and accessible to everyone in our community. Thank you again to Christie Downs Community House for their generous support of our community meeting and for providing a sausage sizzle for attendees. I know how significant this community house is for locals in Christie Downs and the important work they do to support and empower local people to engage in every aspect of community life.

I also briefly update the house on the important work done by Reclink Australia, an outstanding organisation which compassionately contributes to the rebuilding of lives through connecting people with community through sport and arts. Reclink provide evidence-based programs to disadvantaged Australians and, in doing so, they create socially-inclusive, life-changing opportunities.

Reclink delivers specialist sport, recreation and arts programs for at-risk youth, people experiencing mental illness or disability, people experiencing homelessness and domestic violence and those facing alcohol, gambling and substance addictions. In partnership with more than 200 community organisations, Reclink Australia's programs create pathways to improved health and wellbeing, education and employment outcomes. Reclink Australia's social inclusion model has incredible reach.

I was thrilled to back their work in by recently participating in the Reclink Community Cup, an iconic event with a game of grassroots footy and live music to raise funds for the organisation. The football game, which I very proudly and quite badly played in but nonetheless had a great time in, was preceded by a debate at their annual pie night.

This year, the debate focused on whether live music needs the media more than the media needs live music—a debate that this year I was very proud to adjudicate and which saw the Rockatoos (those on the affirmative for music) defeat the Anchors (those arguing for media). The debate was held at the fabulous Wheatsheaf Hotel, one of the many generous sponsors of the event.

It was excellent to play and help fundraise, alongside my colleague from the other place Tammy Franks, the Anchors coach; fabulous organisers, Libby and Matt Trainor; our captain, Jessica Braithwaite of Channel Nine; Christies Beach Football Club star, Monique Hepden; and many, many other generous players. It was also wonderful to play whilst brilliant local band, The Toss, entertained those gathered.

In excess of $20,000 of funds was raised through the Reclink Community Cup, which will provide programs for some of our community's most disadvantaged members. Their programs include the Transformational Links program, run in partnership with the Office for Rec and Sport, which provides support and targeted opportunities to assist individuals to move beyond Reclink's programs into mainstream community activities, such as volunteering, education, training, employment and active ongoing participation in community centres, sporting groups and clubs.