Neil Sachse Foundation

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (15:47): I take this opportunity to bring to the attention of honourable members the Neil Sachse Foundation's 20-year anniversary, and to the foundation's namesake, who 40 years ago suffered a life-changing spinal cord injury while playing his second VFL game for Footscray. Neil also has an SANFL premiership to his name, with 89 games under his belt for North Adelaide. I constantly remind him of his numerous suspensions, as he would easily have made the 100-game mark.

Some members may remember the foundation when it started out as the Spinal Research Fund of Australia Incorporated, and may have attended some of the countless fundraisers and awareness campaigns that raised millions of dollars to fund research that may otherwise have gone unfunded. In fact, since its inception, the Neil Sachse Foundation has contributed over $1.5 million to Flinders University for ground-breaking spinal cord research.

Over the past 20 years Neil has worked tirelessly, advocating the issues surrounding spinal cord injury, and launched the foundation to raise funds for awareness, research and assistance to families of victims of spinal cord injury. He not only started this foundation but actively works within it, and has been formally recognised with a number of awards and nominations, including the Premier's Award for Outstanding Community Achievement in South Australia in 2009, and as a state finalist in the 2014 Australian of the Year Award.

Neil's accident was recorded on television at the time, and as a consequence significantly changed a whole raft of medical approaches to spinal cord injury, its prevention and treatment. In light of such drastic personal and physical changes, Neil must be commended and acknowledged for the path he chose to take when it would have been so easy to focus only on himself and the immense life changes he had to make.

As part of this year's 20^th anniversary celebration, the Richmond versus Western Bulldogs game on 11 April will recognise the memory of Neil's accident 40 years ago, with ads run on the big screen and Neil speaking at the president's lunch. Mr Sachse said that he never had a chance to thank anyone 40 years ago, but he intends to use this platform as an opportunity to thank the sporting community that was involved back in 1975-76, and which raised funds for him and his family. This money gave him the opportunity to get by until he had time to start to feel well again and understand what he could do to be a useful member of the community.

Forty years on, he cannot help but think of how the generosity of the community underpinned his family and how that was a catalyst for why he is here today and, 40 years down the track, Neil will be asking the community to assist him again, not on a personal basis but through the foundation he created 20 years ago, to help others to continue the process of changing medical approaches to benefit society.

The foundation's next project intends to be another significant step to update diagnostics that have been around for well over 50 years, entitled 'Project Discovery'. When completed, the new technology developed by this research will help medical professionals better discover points of injury and damage not possible through current methods. However, this project will not get off the ground without strong government and community support. I would like to congratulate this organisation and Neil on 20 years of commitment, continued support and undying determination to better the lives of all those who suffer with spinal cord injuries and their families, carers and support networks.