Newland Electorate Sporting Clubs

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (15:13): There is no doubt, and we would all certainly be aware of the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has brought many challenges to our community. Many members of my community are self-isolating at home to protect their own health, there are many businesses that have had to close or significantly scale back their operations and, of course, many people are out of work. On top of this, there have also been some challenges for our community.

Community sport, for example, has had to stop, and sport is pretty integral to the fabric of my community and is ordinarily such an enormous part that it not going ahead has made a really big difference to our area. In fact, also in the north-east of Adelaide we have some of the oldest football clubs in the country, including the Tea Tree Gully and Modbury football clubs. There is a very strong sporting culture in my community.

Importantly, the Marshall government is continuing to invest in grassroots sport to help ensure that, whilst those sporting clubs are not operating at the moment, their facilities will be well underway in being upgraded coming out the other end of this. That work is also important for stimulating the economy and creating jobs, particularly in construction.

One particular area of interest to me is the Tea Tree Gully sports hub, where the Tea Tree Gully Tennis Club, the Banksia Park Netball Club and Tea Tree Gully Netball Club are based, which will be expanded, seeing six extra courts. I am thrilled to see that construction on that project will be commencing in May. This is a project that started and was first put on the agenda when I was a candidate. I brought the shadow minister for sport and recreation out to the clubrooms during a cold winter in 2017.

We put this project on the agenda and it is really exciting to see that it will be underway in only a matter of weeks. I am also very pleased to see the state government and Tea Tree Gully council working together to deliver this project. While there has been some squawking from some of the usual suspects on the council—I must say I am somewhat bemused that the Labor councillors would be surprised that the council would invest in its own facilities—this project is nevertheless going ahead, which I think is ultimately what is important for our community.

These six new courts will increase the capacity for tennis and netball at that site. Jason Todd, Scott Sheridan and the rest of the team at the Tea Tree Gully Tennis Club are particularly excited, because this will dramatically increase the range of tournaments that they will be able to host there. The netball clubs that use that facility, mostly for training a couple of nights a week, including the Tea Tree Gully Netball Club with Helen Burvill in charge at the moment, are very excited about that. It will mean they will be able to put more teams on.

Renae Walker and Nada BouChebli are from the Banksia Park Netball Club, which is a slightly smaller netball club. Nevertheless, they have plenty of people willing to join their club and participate in netball, and this will help them do that. Importantly, these courts, which are present already, are constantly being used. I know that the clubs are very keen to see these new courts being open to the community in those periods of time when there is not anyone there. So they will be very, very well used.

I was also thrilled a couple of weeks ago to see the announcement that the Tea Tree Gully Sportsmans Club was successful in round 2 of the government's Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program. The Sportsman's Club hosts the Tea Tree Gully District Football Club and the Tea Tree Gully District Cricket Club, two big clubs in my community. I was very pleased to officially announce this grant with the Minister for Sport and Recreation. We did this on Microsoft Teams with Peter Martin and Des Trussell from the Sportsman's Club.

This is a thoroughly hardworking committee, and I am very pleased to see that they will be getting upgraded unisex change rooms, which will allow for more teams, particularly the fast-growing female teams. They will also be improving and upgrading the lighting at the main oval there, which will expand the use of that ground for football games and also training. It is a great outcome for both clubs.

Importantly, we are also looking forward, so we recently announced the opening of round 3 for the Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program. Again, the minister joined myself via videoconference with a number of local clubs, including the Houghton Oval committee, Tango Netball Club, the Modbury Hawks Netball Club and Hope Valley Netball Club to brief them on the grants that are available in the future. I would like to thank them for volunteering their time and continuing to work for their clubs during these times.

Community sport is such an important part of our community. It is important that we continue to invest and support the facilities of those clubs. No doubt, when this pandemic passes, sport will be back better than ever.