Private Members' Statements

Private Members' Statements

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:42): I rise this afternoon very happily to offer congratulations and wish all the very best to Oscar Keily, who is a student at Stirling East Primary School and who has been selected to represent Australia at the NBA Math Hoops Global Championships in New York City later this month. He is the only Australian to be selected to participate in that competition. It coincides with the NBA Draft, so, as a basketball fan and a maths fan, it is about the perfect combination. We are all tremendously excited for Oscar.

I want to also recognise my friend of over the last decade and more, who is his teacher and also a teacher of our children, Mrs Annette Davis at Stirling East Primary School. She entered him and a classmate into the competition, along with 200,000 students worldwide, to compete in the global championships that have led to this. Oscar was selected, as I say, as Australia's sole representative, and he is the only one outside the USA who will be competing.

NBA Maths Hoops combines the best of basketball and maths via a board game. It can be followed, and I look forward to coming back to the house with the outcome. In the meantime, go Oscar!

Mr DIGHTON (Black) (15:43): I rise to congratulate the Hallett Cove East Primary School Governing Council on their recent quiz night. Along with a table of friends, I attended the quiz night on 24 May. It was a great evening that demonstrated the spirit that exists within the Hallett Cove East Primary School community. Well done to the winning table, Pretty in Pink, and all who attended and participated. The quiz night raised $6,000, which will go towards brightening the school with murals and a sensory path, and the school was hoping to have an Indigenous mural included as well.

It was great to see a couple of community tables filled with people from the local area who have no connection with the school but live locally and wanted to join in, demonstrating the important role the school plays in the broader community. Well done to Amy Wadsworth, the governing council fundraising coordinator, who did an outstanding job organising the event, along with governing council chair, Amber Pellerin, and the rest of the governing council.

Some other special mentions go to the staff who attended, including Principal Matthew Chapman and Deputy Principal Robyn Physick. A special mention also to the major sponsors, Ouwens Casserly (Kat Szatkowska and Andrea Daniel), Esteem Active, and also MC Justin Owen and Karrara Pizza. In my experience, a school is only as strong as the community that surrounds it, and the Hallett Cove East Governing Council have demonstrated the strength of the Hallett Cove East Primary School community.

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:45): I rise to raise some concerns about community safety in Leawood Gardens in my electorate, and in particular some concerns that have been raised with me about individuals using the old freeway as some sort of racetrack. We have reports that individuals are gathering in the Eagle Mountain Bike Park car park and then engaging in hoon driving right around Leawood Gardens. They are also defacing and damaging public property. They are regularly lighting fires in what is of bushfire-prone area. It is very disturbing for local residents and it is also extremely dangerous.

I attended a community meeting on a Sunday morning a couple of weekends ago to meet with various members of the Leawood Gardens community and also an acting senior sergeant from South Australia Police came along who was extremely helpful. We heard a number of practical suggestions from the community, including additional police enforcement operations and also the need for additional road safety infrastructure, including, potentially, average speed cameras on Old Mount Barker Road, as well as the consideration of additional safety measures in the car park itself, such as CCTV, lighting and bollards. These are all issues I am talking about with police, with government, as well as with local councils because we do need to improve community safety and road safety in Leawood Gardens.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (15:46): Today I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the contribution made by the former Mayor Karen Redman of the Town of Gawler. Karen has recently announced that she is resigning from council because of poor health. I would just like to put on the record her contribution to the town, both as a councillor and also as mayor.

It is probably well known that Mayor Redman and I occasionally had a difference of view about different matters, but certainly I do acknowledge her contribution to the town over probably almost 10 years as mayor and also her time as a councillor.

Holding public office is never an easy thing, whether it is at a state, federal or local level, and there are always challenges. I am saddened to see that Mayor Redman has had to cut her time in local government short because of poor health. In my view, she has obviously put the community before herself, which I admire.

As an aside, though—and I would not say it is, from my view, the whole issue—certainly the way she has been treated by some ex-councillors and councillors does not do them credit. I think, in this day and age, while we can be robust in our discussions and our differences, we need to always be respectful and certainly I respect the contribution she has made to our town.