Adelaide Electorate

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (16:04): Thank you Mr Speaker. I also congratulate you on your appointment, and I hope to see your assistant speaker Dusty on the floor of the parliament sometime soon. I rise to give a big shout-out to helpful organisations and local groups in my community. We all came together last week for a seniors' forum that I put on for senior locals in my community. It was a great opportunity to come together as a community to hear useful information from a range of organisations as well as bring together all our amazing community groups, our service groups and our sporting groups.

I have always said that one of the legacies I want to leave for my community is a more connected one because I do believe that a connected community is a stronger and healthier one. The idea around our seniors' forum was to bring together people in our community, to be able to access important information but also connect with our community, service and sporting groups, whether or not that is by volunteering, participating or just going along to their next meeting. I believe that more connection in our community, people knowing each other, really does create a stronger, happier and healthier community.

I want to thank not only the Minister for Health, who attended our first session in the morning, but also the Council on the Ageing, the Office for Ageing Well, the Energy Advisory Service, Services Australia, Dementia Australia, Pop-Up Health, Hearing Australia, the City of Prospect and Prospect Blair Athol Lions, who also provided the tea and coffee on the day. Many thanks to Gary and the other volunteers. I want to thank Meals on Wheels Prospect, and I want to thank my uncle Roger for speaking about the wonderful service that Meals on Wheels provides our community and also the benefits of volunteering for the service. I myself am a Prospect Meals on Wheels volunteer and get so much out of it.

I also want to thank the Collinswood Probus and Prospect Probus, the Prospect Community Gardens, the Prospect Broadview Bowling Club, the North Adelaide Croquet Club, the Prospect Kiwanis and the Adelaide Uni Judo Club. As well as having all those stallholders, we heard from a range of speakers. I think one of the highlights was from the Energy Advisory Service. It gave us some amazing tips on how we can reduce our energy bills, the temperature that we should have our cooling on in the summer and our heating on in the winter and also just really useful tips like the amazing benefits of a heated blanket. I know my mum is a huge fan of her heated blanket. Living down in the South-East, it is an absolute necessity. That can add huge savings to your energy budget.

I want to thank all those speakers who were able to contribute on the day, as well as two of our amazing local businesses in the Prospect community: Schinella's Your Local Market, for providing the fruit, and also Muratti, which we have in our main street of Prospect. It is almost a blessing and a curse, sometimes, having Muratti in our local area because it is absolutely delicious. There are so many treats; they are very hard to refuse.

I just want to end on an important health message for women in my community. From Monday 6 May, eligible women will be able to access a resupply of the contraceptive pill from a pharmacy—no doctor required. This is building on our efforts in the space, where we have been actually allowing, for the past month, eligible women between 18 and 60 to access a one-off course of antibiotics for a UTI. We are making these efforts to make it easier for women to access the medication they need without going to see a doctor.

Just a reminder that, from Monday 6 May, you will be able to access a resupply of your contraceptive pill from your local pharmacy—no doctor required—and also you are able to access, for an uncomplicated UTI, a one-off antibiotic course from your local pharmacy. We know that more than 600 South Australian women have already accessed this assessment, so we can see that there is a clear need for it. This is an important step in making a difference to the lives of women and, importantly, making it easier for the lives of women in my local community.