Maitland Netball Association

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Sport. Will the government commit to financial assistance for the Maitland netball club to rebuild their courts? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr ELLIS: The Maitland community have done a significant local fundraising effort to repair their courts but unfortunately they have been unsuccessful in the past three grant programs they have applied for. In early March, the YP Netball Association declared the courts unplayable.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Sport.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD (Reynell—Minister for Child Protection, Minister for Women and the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:58): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and congratulations on your appointment. Thank you very much to the member for his question. I know that he is an incredible advocate for sporting clubs in his community and also, as I understand it, an avid sportsperson himself over many years.

First of all, I want to say to Sam Holmes, the President of the Central Yorke Cougars Netball Club, and committee members, that I, as you do, really appreciate all that they do to bring the community on Yorke Peninsula together through netball. They have done that for many years. Their voluntary work to include people and to improve their physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing through netball participation is absolutely to be applauded.

It is frustrating when clubs apply for grants and they are not successful. Those grants are of course assessed by the excellent team at the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing. I do encourage the club to continue to apply for particular grant programs, and there are several from what I understand about the club, that they would be able and eligible to apply for early in the financial year and I do encourage them to do that.

I also wanted to let the member know that I do have both a letter to him as local member and also to Mr Sam Holmes, the president of the club, sitting on my desk actually, so I will make sure we get those to you really quickly. Again, I do appreciate what they do and I encourage them despite that frustration to keep applying and we will certainly provide more information about those opportunities that are available.

I also wanted to mention, really importantly, the growing participation in netball and the supporting of netballers in our state, including the many players, including from Yorke Peninsula, who come from our regions to participate in the country championship. I was really pleased to stand with the Premier just a few weeks ago to announce a really exciting $80 million investment into the development of the Netball SA stadium at Mile End. That will be a stadium that will grow on the already strong number, 35,000, of players who participate there at the stadium, including through country championships.

It will be a place where the outdoor facilities will be upgraded, significantly redeveloped and the stadium itself fundamentally redeveloped so that we can provide those facilities for the largely female participants, girls and women, to keep participating in the sport that they love there at Mile End. Having said that, I do reassure the member that we will make the club aware of those upcoming opportunities to apply for funds in their local community, and can I also say, as I think the member knows, I am very happy to talk further with him about those opportunities and to talk further with the club as well and to see how we can make sure that they have all of the information that they need as they continue through that process.