Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (17:19): I rise today to wish the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions a very happy 60^th anniversary. On Monday evening, I was privileged to join—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can members please keep quiet. I think the member for Adelaide can start again, please. The member for Flinders, do you want to leave the chamber? I heard your voice.

Ms HOOD: I rise today to wish the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club a very happy 60^th anniversary. On Monday evening, we all went along to the Bombay Bicycle Club in my electorate to celebrate this significant milestone. If I can choose just one example of what an incredible club this is to our community, it would be in December 2021. Our community events had not quite recovered from the COVID pandemic, and one of those events was the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club Carols in the Park.

They were not able to hold it again that year, so the Lions Club put out the offer that they would come along to our community's front yards and they would sing carols for our families, where we could stand at the door and listen to the members sing carols. I will never forget that moment when they knocked on my door and I was able to bring my children out to the front porch, and members of the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club sang us various Christmas carols. It was incredibly special, and it was really just one example of what an amazing community club this is.

I would like to congratulate President Gary Pavlich on his continued service in the role leading our Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club. I would like to give a shout-out to our own Hansard staff member, Vicky, who officially became a Lion on Monday evening—congratulations.

Our community would not be what it is without the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club. Our Twilight music concert sessions every Friday night in February just would not be the same without the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club barbecue. For those of us who are local, we know that the hot chips made by Roy are worth the wait. I have volunteered many an evening at that barbecue and I know that the hot chips have to make the exact right sound when he has them in his little metal bowl and he is putting on the salt. Unless they have that particular crunch, he will not be serving them, so we all know they are very much worth the wait.

As I was saying, the Carols in the Park run by the Lions is just a very special community event held every December in the Soldiers Memorial Gardens. The Lions Christmas cakes: Christmas would not be Christmas without them, and this July Lion Stephanie is celebrating a Christmas in July and making sure she is selling as many Lions Christmas cakes as she can. We recently also celebrated the Lions Biggest Morning Tea at the Prospect Broadview Bowling Club, and we were able to raise more than $1,000 for cancer research. It is those events that really just show what a special club this is.

They do so many other activities to support people not just in our community but wider. They recycle eye glasses, they do bottle runs, they run the Blue Tree Project, which is where they paint trees in our community blue just as a symbol to say, 'It's okay not to be okay.' They have various barbecues. You will often find them at the Churchill Road Bunnings, at the mini railway station, at our spring fairs, at various markets, including the Christmas markets, and when we celebrate Christmas in Prospect, and their efforts support the Mary Potter Hospice, Yarrow Place, the Hutt St Centre, and Operation Flinders, amongst others.

Once again, I just want to thank every single member of the Prospect and Blair Athol Lions Club for their service to our community, and congratulate them again on their 60 years of service. Our community literally would not be what it is without them.

With the time I have left, I also want to speak on the Housing Roadmap that the Premier and the planning minister announced during the week. Ten years ago, I was able to put a 'sold' sticker on the plans of my very first home. It was an apartment in the CBD in Sturt Street. I would not have been able to purchase that if it were not for the then Labor government abolishing stamp duty on new builds in the city and also the First Home Owner Grant.

It also took a lot of saving and sacrifice, but the fact of the matter is that is just not enough anymore. It is becoming harder and harder for young people to build or buy their own home. I want to congratulate the Premier and the minister for making the tough decisions and doing the incredibly hard work to make sure that more young South Australians can buy their very own home.