Power Prices

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): My question is to the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing. What action, if any, has the minister taken to support sports clubs struggling with their power bills? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The opposition has been contacted by a club in the electorate of Black that is facing power bills of up to $26,000. The club is struggling to stay afloat and has had to increase the cost of fees for its junior players, hitting the hip pocket of local families in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

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) (14:18): Thank you very much to the Leader of the Opposition for the question. It is a question to which I can provide plenty of information in terms of how this government supports sport and how it supports any cost-of-living pressures for families. I know that in his question he spoke about what we are doing around the issue of members, parents of children, not being able to deal with the cost of fees, etc.

I will come back to power prices as well, because we are doing a whole lot in that space as well, you will be very pleased to know. What I will say first of all, though, is that in the last 2½ years, following the extraordinary advocacy of Alex Dighton and local clubs in the electorate of Black, this government has invested $3.5 million into local sporting clubs. One of those clubs, one of the precincts, was recently in August very proudly opened by the Premier himself. I can tell you that those clubs are absolutely ecstatic with the advocacy of the Labor candidate for Black—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Transport will come to order. Leader, you can stop the discussion across the chamber.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: —and the investment that we have made into their clubs. If you would like a little bit of a reminder about some of those investments, $2.5 million has gone into the redevelopment of the Cove Sports and Community Club. That place hosts The Cove footy club, the Cove Cricket Club, the Hallett Cove Netball Club and the Cove Tigers Netball Club and they have all expressed their extreme happiness about those upgrades, telling us that they will enable them to include even more local people to be active in the sport that they love. I look forward, as I often do, to visiting them again to talk about that redevelopment, a redevelopment that the Premier very proudly opened just at the beginning of August, from memory. Again, I am sure he could attest as well that people are very happy about that redevelopment.

But that's not all. In addition to that, $200,000 has been provided for the resurfacing of two tennis courts at the Kingston House reserve. Also, there has been an additional $874,000 provided to a range of other clubs around the electorate of Black. The Cove FC—who, incidentally, were recently crowned State League 2 champions and welcome hundreds and hundreds of men and women, boys and girls to their club every year—received $498,322 to complete the Southern Soccer Facility through the construction of a fourth pitch.

And there's more. The Brighton and Seacliff Yacht Club were recently awarded $328,500 to help with change room refurbishments and, really importantly, more accessible facilities. What I can also tell you is that a number of clubs have received grants through the Active Club Program: the O'Halloran Hill Tennis Club, the Seacliff Hockey Club, the Hallett Cove Beach Tennis Club, the Cove BMX Club, the Seacliff surf club, the International Optimist Dinghy Association, the South Australian Laser Association and the Cove netball club. In addition to the funds I spoke about previously, the Sheidow Park Cricket—

The SPEAKER: Time has expired, minister.

The Hon. K.A. HILDYARD: I am so sorry. The list is quite long, but I will save it for later.