Colton Electorate

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (15:14): I rise today to provide an update on the many happenings in the local area. As everybody knows, leading into summer is a fantastic time to be in the western suburbs of Adelaide, and I would like to take an opportunity to highlight many of the constituents, clubs and schools that have been doing such great work over recent times.

To start off with, as we are coming to the end of the school year, I would like to recognise winners of the Mary Colton Award. This has been awarded by the member for Colton for a number of years, and I was very happy to continue that tradition when I came into the role. We have had the graduation ceremonies for our senior schools at St Michael's College and also at Henley High School. Aleesha Stone took out the Mary Colton Award for St Michael's and Tayla De Beer won the Mary Colton Award at Henley High School. I was also able to sponsor an award, and Ella Sheffield was awarded that at the Henley High School graduation.

We also had the Henley High School sport award, where Alex Haydon was named as Henley High School sportsperson of the year. She had a pretty terrific week last week. She also took away the school sport award at the SA Sport Awards last Friday. I want to give Alex a very special shout-out as a year 12 having just finished her studies and done some pretty incredible things, to be completely frank, in the world of squash. She is a rising star with seven national titles. She captained the Oceania team and won the under 19 girls title at the Youth Olympics. She is an incredible athlete.

I had the privilege of meeting Alex four or five years ago now. One of the great privileges I have had since leaving the swimming world was to manage the Commonwealth Youth Games team in Samoa and the Bahamas and I was lucky enough to meet her. She was one of the young squash athletes competing in the games in Samoa and she made an impression on me, that is for sure. She was a diligent athlete, and even then I certainly knew she was destined to do great things in the squash world, so a huge congratulations to her.

Also recently, the Henley South Tennis Club held a men's mental health awareness day when they raised funds for beyondblue. Mental health is a huge issue within our society and something that the Henley South Tennis Club has taken a leading step in, acknowledging that we need to bring mental health to the fore. Roger Rasheed came along and did a great job in talking very directly about the issue and some of his broader experiences with mental health through elite sport and more broadly within the community itself. Ben Ward, the treasurer at Henley South Tennis Club, and his team did a fantastic job in organising that event.

We also had the 40^th anniversary of the Henley and Grange Historical Society, a great occasion at the Henley Town Hall. A great number of their members—40 to 50—came out to celebrate the 40^th anniversary and to cut the cake. What a great job they do in recording the stories and the history of the local area, and some were very pertinent that day. We touched on Dawn Fraser a number of times, and her time at the Henley baths training for the Olympics, and everybody is very proud of the role the historical society plays within our local area. We have a few local legends including young Audrey, who has been a member there for a very long time.

Last week, the member for Morphett and I held our joint seniors forum for the year, where we talked on the topic of advance care directives, and a huge thanks to Margaret Brown for coming out and presenting that. Well over 200 locals came out to hear about advance care directives and a range of issues and tips and tricks involved with that. We are very thankful to those who attended. Each person who comes along from time to time donates a gold coin, and we were able to raise some much-needed funds for Operation Flinders, a charity that does amazing work with at-risk youth.

In the time I have remaining, I want to highlight that this Saturday will be the first beach day for the Henley Snippers program. The Henley Surf Life Saving Club was recognised for this program at the Surf Life Saving SA awards last year, and it really does a fantastic job in ensuring that surf lifesaving is available for absolutely all members of our community. I look forward to getting down to the beach and seeing everybody on Saturday.