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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-10-19 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

COUNTRY SHOWS

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:26): I would like to talk today about one of the real pleasures of my role as the member for Flinders, and that is to tour around my electorate on the Eyre Peninsula and attend as many of the country shows as I possibly can. It is springtime in South Australia and many of the country towns are having their shows. In our local area, Port Lincoln and Wudinna have shows. Lipson, very pleasingly, has seen a resurgence. The Lipson show was in remission for a few years.

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Where's that?

Mr TRELOAR: Lipson is just inland from Tumby Bay, in between Tumby Bay and Ungarra. It is a tiny little town, but it has held a show for over 100 years. So, congratulations to them for reinvigorating that particular event. The show this year had probably double the crowd it had last year, so congratulations to them. Yallunda Flat has a real picnic atmosphere about it. The shearing event is held in the picturesque creek-lined hills of Yallunda Flat, and it has become a real novelty there in recent years.

Last week, it was my pleasure to attend the 100th Cummins show. In fact, Cummins is my home town, so it gave me a great deal of pleasure to be present at that show and also take part in some of the organising and running of the event on the day. I can probably throw the Cleve show into the mix, and I should. The Cleve show is now held in the autumn. It has been moved from spring to autumn to help the round of shows and to accommodate more than anything, I think, the show horses and the horses in action, which really do have quite a specific and set round.

The Oysterfest in Ceduna probably fits into this category as well. It is a big event. It is on the long weekend in October and, this year, I know they went through an extraordinary number of oysters. So, no doubt a good time was had by all.

The countryside is looking a picture at the moment. The Eyre Peninsula is looking forward to a good crop. It will not be quite the bin buster that it was last year, but it should certainly be above average. The Leader of the Opposition, Isobel Redmond, was welcomed to Cummins to open the show, and she mingled with the assembled crowd following that opening ceremony. I myself had a role to play as patron and was pleased to be able to award life memberships on the day to Bill Harris and Daphne Mickan.

There was a historical theme to the day. There were many vintage tractors and many vintage cars, and it was a pleasure to see them all polished up and in running condition. There was also a lot of new machinery. Of course, traditionally, one of the roles of country shows has been to exhibit the newest in available technology as far as farming machinery goes.

The Railway Preservation Society had a tent and display. There was even wrestling. Our original intention was to get Brophy's Boxing Tent back to the Cummins Show. We wrote to Ken and he is quite elderly these days. He thanked us for the invitation but declined. The wrestling proved to be quite a highlight. There was the usual art/craft, farm and garden produce, horses in action and my favourite of all, the poultry.

Interestingly, on the day two books were launched. One was a pictorial history of the Cummins Show itself. It was the 100th Cummins Show. In fact, the shows began as fairs in 1907. It officially became a show in 1910. Only two years have we missed a show in Cummins: one was in 1919 when the day was spent welcoming home the returned soldiers from World War I, and the other time was in 1992 when ongoing inclement weather unfortunately forced the cancellation of the show that year.

The other book launch was another historical booklet, tracing the history of grain handling as it was. It was compiled by the late Jim Cronin and launched by his brother Pat, with good help from Ian Rodgers who gathered the information together and got into print what Jim Cronin had compiled. Congratulations to them.

Along with that was a bag-sewing demonstration. That was of great interest, of course, because that is how things were done—three bushel bags—and it was good to see. A great day was had by all. Congratulations, if I may, just quickly in closing, to Graham Fuss, the Chairman of the show committee, and also the 100th year committee. It was an extraordinary amount of work by him and his committees. Congratulations to all.

Time expired.

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