King Electorate Sports Facilities

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing. How much is the Marshall government investing in sports facilities in King?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:34): I thank the member for King for her question and her passion for sport in her local community. She is very aware that as a government we are very keen to be delivering sporting infrastructure into South Australia and we are very keen to be delivering it into King. She is a wonderful advocate for her community, does an outstanding job and, like the rest of the government, she is just passionate about getting people active in her community.

It was a pleasure to be with her in her electorate last week. I was at the Golden Grove shopping centre with her, and it was outstanding to see people lined up to talk to her, all with a friendly smile, all wanting to have a chat. The way that she engages with her community so regularly is first class and her community appreciates her for that.

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Waite is warned.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: When it comes to sporting facilities, we went to the Golden Grove Tennis Club and it was with great pleasure that we handed over a cheque, through the community recreation and sport facilities grant—and I had to look down to read this to check this was right—for $369,800 to improve the facilities at this tennis club. What they are going to get—and they have been waiting a long time for this, and the member for King has advocated very hard for this tennis club and this tennis community—is new change rooms and new social rooms as well.

This club is really well run. It has stacks of members and it is really bursting at the seams, so to have this infrastructure and to have this facility there for this club is truly outstanding. We got to meet a man with a number of roles of club president, club coach, sponsorship and marketing coordinator, social committee member and life member, Craig Mousley. What a great man he is! He has been at this club for 27 years and has given back so much to this community. The juniors that he runs, the programs that he runs, he reaches out to people of all ages and does an outstanding job. It was a pleasure to meet him. He has been advocating for this for a long time. He worked with the member for King and we were very happy to be delivering this new facility for that community.

Whilst he is aware and very conscious of keeping people active and keeping people playing tennis and involved in the community from a health perspective and a sport perspective, he is also very aware of the importance that sport plays from a social aspect as well—keeping people around the club, keeping them engaged, keeping them communicating with one another. It is a big part of what sport offers in a community; that was absolutely outstanding. We went to what will be the new clubrooms and the courts. It was great to see Craig and talk about tennis. We went to the local shopping centre as well where the member, as I said, was swamped.

We also went to the Salisbury Police Station and had a good look around there, and it was a pleasure to work with the local police to see what they were doing on the ground. Again, the member for King is incredibly engaged with the police community and has a constant communication with them, relaying that back into her community. Guy Buckley is the officer in charge of the northern district; he is the superintendent. He and the member for King are almost on speed dial with each other, they talk so regularly. They stay in touch. She is doing such a wonderful job advocating for her community and she is tapped into all elements of her local area. I commend her for that.

I am going to flick back to tennis because I know the member for King was excited by this as well and so was Craig Mousley, the coach at the Golden Grove Tennis Club. His son Bradley plays on the international stage. He is a young up-and-coming tennis player, a South Australian tennis player. They also spoke about how excited they were about the Adelaide International kicking off here in South Australia early next year in January. We have the WTA event and the ATP event. Craig has obviously coached his son for a period along with Jack Reader, a couple of good South Australian coaches on the tennis stage, and we hope very much that Brad might be in full fitness to have a chance to qualify for the Adelaide International. It would be great to see a lot of young South Australians playing in that.

Again, to the member for King, for the great work she does, for the advocacy and the money that she has injected into her local community through sport, we must commend her and thank her for her hard work.