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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-05-13 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

TIDY TOWNS AWARDS

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:30): I wish to take this opportunity to update the house on the national Keep Australia Beautiful awards, the national component of which was held in Canberra on Friday of last week, 8 May. Members would recollect that several weeks ago I commented that Stansbury on Yorke Peninsula in the Goyder electorate had been selected as South Australia's tidiest town late in November 2008. Since that time, that community has continued to work to its utmost to ensure it had some success on the national stage.

The judging from the national perspective occurred only in mid December. People worked feverishly—and this is a wonderful collection of about 24 people, with an average of about 18 people turning up each week and, collectively, they probably work close to 100 hours a week ensuring that their town is not only in spick and span condition but also that every minute detail is taken care of. They do far more than a paid employee might do. These people take great pride in their community and also have wonderful involvement with the younger and older generations of the town, and the relationship they have with the Stansbury Primary School is very much an inspiration.

In Canberra last week were the finalists from the six states and the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory was represented by Atitjere, which is an Aboriginal community of only 100 people. Western Australia was represented by Kambalda, which is a mining town, and it is rather unusual for a mining town to be nominated for this award. South Australia, of course, was represented by Stansbury. Tasmania was represented by the community of Oatlands, which has a strong heritage character. Victoria was represented by Horsham, New South Wales by Tamworth, and Queensland by Caloundra.

I had the great honour of being part of the delegation in Canberra last week, as the local member. Local government was represented by the mayor; the progress association (which has been a very strong supporter of this group) was involved; Tidy Towns, obviously, is the prime mover, and was represented by two wonderful older gentlemen (I do not think they would mind being called that), Mr Alex Daniell (who is 89 years and has amazing energy for his age and is a credit to himself) and Mr Ken Osterstock (who is probably in his late 70s); and the Stansbury Primary School delegates were there also, with the principal and one of the SSOs.

It was wonderful to see on the Friday the displays by all the different states in the Crowne Plaza hotel. Without being biased, Stansbury quite easily had the best demonstration. It had gone to a lot of effort so that the visual impression ensured all the states were aware of what Stansbury as a community does on Yorke Peninsula by way of improving itself and self-belief. Regrettably, unfortunately, I have to confirm we did not win the national award. That went to Tamworth. Tamworth was very deserving: it has a community of about 30,000 people and has great pride in itself, also, but Stansbury certainly held up our end of the bargain and did this state very proud indeed.

However, Stansbury was acknowledged in two ways—first, through the Young Legends award, which recognises environmental achievement through youth initiative and/or community which encourages and promotes youth initiative and environmental education. It achieved that because of the involvement of the Stansbury Primary School. Every one of the students in that school was dedicated and their families were very supportive. The staff of the school are wonderful activists for environmental awareness, and that school certainly did South Australia proud. It was a pleasure to see them receive the Young Legends award.

Stansbury as a Tidy Towns group won another major award, being the Dame Phyllis Frost award (she was the founder of Keep Australia Beautiful in 1968), an award for group activities. The amount of equipment that Stansbury Tidy Towns group has managed to accumulate since 1992, when it first started, which assists in its efforts within the community, was emphasised.

The presentation of the other awards was held at the Crowne Plaza and then everyone who was there (and there were two bus loads) went to the residence of the Governor General (Her Excellency Quentin Bryce), who hosted a reception. She was a very gracious host. She walked around and spoke to most of the groups in the room. She stood for photos and allowed people to walk through the home and look at the official residence. That is where the announcement was made of Tamworth's success.

In my closing comments I want to reinforce the fact that Stansbury is a community that believes in itself. It has been, and probably will continue to be, a community that will attract a lot of retirees. The Tidy Towns group does a wonderful job in assimilating those people into the community. They are welcome for the skills that they bring and the initiatives and energies they have. They become involved and get to know people. They form very close friendships and, as a collective community, they have indeed done Yorke Peninsula proud, they have done proud the electorate that I have the honour to serve, and I have no doubt that they have done South Australia proud. I hope that all communities in regional South Australia continue to be involved in the Tidy Towns awards. It is a great opportunity to promote themselves and our state.

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