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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-03-04 Daily Xml
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ALDINGA AERO CLUB

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:28): I rise today to congratulate the Aldinga Aero Club on the fantastic work that it does in our local community and further afield across our state. For many years now the club has been running special days for the Leukaemia Foundation, taking kids on joy flights. It will be doing that again this month, and I will be pleased to be there on the last Sunday in March to see the joy on these children's faces when they are taken up in the air over beautiful Aldinga, McLaren Vale and Willunga. For many it is not only a wonderful opportunity but also a chance to get away from some of the suffering and the time they are spending in hospital.

Also, in the past year the Aldinga Aero Club has been involved in Angel Flights, which fly throughout South Australia (and, sometimes, even across into Victoria) to pick up children to take them to hospital either for their treatment, to save them spending a lot of time in the car, or to take the siblings or parents of children to hospitals. One such flight which occurred last month was to Jamestown when Terry Cahalan from the Aldinga Aero Club flew up to Jamestown to pick up 14 year old Ben Carpenter.

It was Ben's very first flight, and he and his brother went down to see his other brother, Peter, who is 16. He was in the Women's and Children's Hospital suffering from a brain tumour. Three weeks after his operation, he was having physiotherapy and, no doubt, he was lifted by the visit of his two brothers from Jamestown. That might not have been possible without the generosity of the pilots from the Aldinga Aero Club and those who own the aircraft to give up their aircraft and their time to go out into our rural areas. I know that they have been across to the member for Flinders' electorate to bring people over from Ceduna, and I think they do a wonderful job.

Electranet, the company that owns the state's major power poles and power transmission system, donated $10,000, which has enabled the Aldinga Aero Club to do about 14 flights in the past year. I urge any business out there to look at the Angel Flights website and read the testimonials not just from the children but also from the pilots and all those people involved in order to see what a wonderful service this is. It is sometimes the most difficult time of their lives for a family to have a young sick child, and these people are really making a difference, so I commend all the pilots involved.

I also commend the people—called the Earth Angels—who go to the airports to pick up the children or the parents who have made the flight. They might drive to Parafield or Aldinga aerodromes or Adelaide Airport to pick up these children or their parents and then drive them to the airport, which is another money-saving thing but also something that takes the hassle out of it for these people coming from remote locations or country areas who might not be used to navigating their way around the city and for whom having someone who is volunteering their time to meet the plane on its arrival and taking them to the hospital is a great help.

A few years ago the Aldinga Aero Club also ran the shark patrols for South Australia. When I was working for the then minister for emergency services, we were very grateful for the great contribution that the Aldinga Aero Club made in that area of shark patrols. Things have moved on now and it is being done by a different organisation, but the Aldinga Aero Club showed foresight and a great community spirit in contacting us to say, 'We know that you would like to get some planes up there spotting sharks to make people on our beaches feel a lot safer. We would be more than happy to do that on a voluntary basis.'

Not only did they do that and involve their club members, but also they extended it to the SES, another group of fantastic volunteers in our community. So, we had SES volunteers going up in the planes as shark spotters and, again, they would report in to the police and Surf Lifesaving so that people on the beach could be warned if there were sharks about and, where necessary, taken out of the water and the area made safe. Again, I thank the Aldinga Aero Club for its work on the shark patrols, its work on Leukaemia Day and looking after those very ill people. Thank you also to Electranet and, again, to the club and all the pilots who do such a great job with the Angel flights.

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