Westfield Marion Local Heroes

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (15:31): I have great pleasure in rising today and congratulating the three successful winners of the 2020 Westfield Marion Local Heroes award. These local leaders were nominated and voted for by our southern community. Each will be awarded a $10,000 grant for their organisations in order to continue their wonderful work. The three winners this year were Melanie Tate from Puddle Jumpers, Mish Simpson from Southern Koala and Echidna Rescue group and Emmah Money from Cure4 Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

In its third year, the three Westfield Local Heroes will be part of 363 local heroes and organisations that have been awarded $3.62 million in community grants across our country. I will give a little shout-out to my husband because he was one of them last year for speaking to over 100,000 kids in schools and doing an amazing job. Thankfully, he will now not have his photograph all over Westfield Marion for my children to do selfies in front of.

Westfield Local Heroes are nominated and voted for by the communities. Loads and loads of people submit their votes, so it is really highly competitive. The role models work in or undertake activities that create a positive benefit for others by either nurturing a sense of belonging and inclusion or helping in times of community crisis. Melanie Tate from Puddle Jumpers has been inspirational in setting up that organisation, which supports at-risk young people through Puddle Jumpers, and her volunteers help in many other ways.

This year, it has come to the fore—not just now, of course, because the camps can't be undertaken because of COVID—that the weekly food nights are providing sustenance for many families. Melanie tells me that they are now giving out thousands of meals to people every week. I congratulate Melanie on the work she has been doing. I know that fundraising is highly competitive, so this $10,000 will help Puddle Jumpers to do their food nights. Especially as well, I am hearing that hampers are being delivered to women and families fleeing domestic violence and having to stay in hotels. Thank you so much for what you are doing, Melanie. It is a really amazing thing you are doing for the community.

Mish Simpson devotes heaps of time and energy along with her husband, family and friends rehabilitating injured koalas and echidnas. Along with her husband, Wade, she founded the non-profit organisation Southern Koala and Echidna Rescue. Both of them work full-time as well as being on call often 24 hours a day to go and do rescues for our animals.

They undertake education and community engagement as well and do a fantastic job working alongside other animal rescue organisations in our southern suburbs of Adelaide. She will use the money to purchase materials and build more enclosures for animals. We know only too well how important this is, particularly following the bushfires last year and how many hundreds of animals have had to be rescued across Adelaide and Kangaroo Island. Well done to Mish.

The cystic fibrosis warrior, my friend Emmah Money, is an absolute dynamo. She lives with cystic fibrosis herself and has been an ambassador for the Cure4 Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, helping to raise $50,000 for them. Emmah has two children as well. She lives in our local community, and she does such a fantastic job. I know Emmah proudly says that she was placed up for adoption after doctors told her parents that she was unlikely to survive. She has lived with her beautiful parents in the southern suburbs and continues to do a great job for people with cystic fibrosis.

Congratulations to those three people. I also want to use the few last seconds to acknowledge that tomorrow will be International Day of People with Disability. The theme for this year is 'Building back better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 world', which is highly appropriate. I call on members to work with me to seek information from our community about how we can make our community more inclusive and a much more livable society for all people with disability so that everybody who lives in our community can compete on an equal footing for jobs, education and health care.