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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-07-04 Daily Xml
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Motions

Grange Surf Life Saving Club

Debate resumed.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (11:44): I rise today to support the member for Lee's motion and to offer my sincere congratulations to the Grange Surf Life Saving Club on winning the 2018 surf lifesaving Junior State Championships in March this year. I also note the fine performances of the West Beach and Henley surf lifesaving clubs at that competition. It appears almost that the member for Lee would like to suggest a change of colours perhaps for the Grange Surf Life Saving Club in the future if the Collingwood references continue, but it was certainly a fine performance by the club.

Surf lifesaving has a long and proud history in South Australia. As I have previously mentioned, and as was highlighted by the member for Lee, the first club was formed at Henley in 1925. This was 18 years after the first clubs were established nationally in Sydney in around 1907. Henley was soon joined by Seacliff in 1930; Glenelg in 1931, I am sure the member for Morphett would be proud to know; Port Elliot in 1933; and Moana in 1938. Then a period of difficulty emerged for reasons I am sure would be outlined historically. The coastal waters were declared as being inland as opposed to coastal, and a tussle occurred between a number of organisations as to how surf lifesaving would continue here in South Australia.

In 1952, Surf Life Saving South Australia was given affiliation to the national body, which led to rapid growth. It gives a good indication of how our beachside suburbs progressed from that time, with Port Noarlunga forming in 1952, joining the original five clubs, and then Brighton and Semaphore forming in 1953. Christies, Grange and, importantly, West Beach were formed in 1955 and then, as we work our way down the coast, Beachport was the latest to join Surf Life Saving South Australia in 2016.

As you can see, Surf Life Saving South Australia has taken off and, with 22 clubs across the state and membership continuing to grow, we can truly appreciate the remarkable effort of the Grange Surf Life Saving Club, particularly to highlight the fact that they have won nine out of the past 10 junior surf lifesaving championships. It truly is a remarkable effort, and the club should be extremely proud of that history.

Unfortunately, Colton lost the Grange Surf Life Saving Club due to the boundary redistribution last year, but gained the excellent West Beach Surf Life Saving Club and retained the Henley Surf Life Saving Club as well, two incredibly successful clubs in their own right. I, like other members, would like to thank Rae Lawson, the president of the Henley Beach surf club, and Peter Zuill of the West Beach surf club for the effort they contribute and their successful management of both surf clubs. The community in the western suburbs certainly thank them for their service.

The electorate of Colton has an incredibly strong surf lifesaving community and the support that they receive is an accurate and true reflection of the great service that they provide and a quintessential example of volunteers making a positive and substantial contribution to our local community. I am certainly a big advocate for volunteering and for local community groups, and I know that both West Beach and Henley surf clubs are always looking for people to join in and to volunteer.

Anyone can be a surf lifesaver. They often come from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, in all shapes and sizes. Surf lifesaving is built on volunteers who love the beach and who love their community, so I certainly urge anyone who is thinking about joining their local surf club to do so and to get involved. With summer just around the corner, or in the not too distant future I should say—certainly at this time of the year we hope that it gets closer—it is an opportune time to reflect on the valuable role of surf lifesaving in South Australia, and its volunteers.

I do not think enough can be said about the contributions of all our surf clubs to our individual communities. There are not many cases where a community organisation serves so many purposes. Surf clubs are a place of meeting, a place of contribution and a place of family. The number of hours dedicated by surf club members and committee representatives is truly a contribution to our great state, particularly to the western suburbs, that would be very difficult to replace if not for the work of those great organisations.

I am more than happy and very proud and thankful to be able to take this opportunity to place on the public record this house's sincere appreciation for the work that the Surf Life Saving organisation and all the surf lifesavers and volunteers do in our coastal communities across our great state. There is a very good reason that surf lifesavers exist. They play a very important role, as we have talked about.

But if you look at the numbers between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2017 (the previous financial year), we still had 291 people drown in Australian waterways. A number of those were in inland waterways, but certainly a number of those were on our coast. It is important to reflect and remember that this number would be far greater if not for the service of our surf lifesavers and their dedication and commitment to ensuring that we keep our beaches as safe as possible.

In many ways, one of the biggest challenges for us is to try to reduce that number to one that is acceptable. Of course, zero is one that we would all want to reach, whether that is realistic or not. It is often very difficult to put the impetus on getting down to a point where we eliminate all drownings, but we certainly hope that number will be lower in future years.

For some of those reasons, I think the Liberal Party, in particular leading into the last election, acknowledged that water safety education is a big part of reducing that number, which is why we committed to supporting Surf Life Saving South Australia's Surf Babies program to ensure that those young South Australians, who are growing up in South Australia, a state that is surrounded by water and has some amazing coastal regions and beaches, have access to water safety education at a young age. It is an incredibly important thing and is obviously, given my background, something that I am very passionate about seeing delivered in South Australia.

On a more positive note, like many of the members in this house, I think we are very excited about welcoming the Lifesaving World Championships here to Glenelg, South Australia, later in the year in November. It is an opportunity for us to showcase our fantastic beaches. Despite the lack of swell, I think the three of us may get down there and try our very best to give some indication that there are beaches that need protecting that are quite substantial in their surf appeal. That aside, it is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the great number of surf lifesavers in this state.

I certainly join in passing on my best wishes to the members of the West Beach Surf Life Saving Club and the Henley Surf Life Saving Club, who will be participating in those championships. We have a number of very successful masters swimmers and surf competitors across the two clubs, and I am sure they will enjoy the opportunity to represent their club, their state and their country here in their own state in the Lifesaving World Championships later in the year.

It will certainly be a great opportunity for the state, from an economic perspective, to have so many people coming from both interstate and overseas to be here in South Australia to celebrate a pastime and a way of life, in many ways, that is surf lifesaving in South Australia. I certainly stand with all other members so far in supporting this motion, and I thank the member for Lee for bringing it to the house.

Mr MULLIGHAN (Lee) (11:53): I thank the member for Colton for his contribution and acknowledge the contributions of the member for Reynell and the member for Morphett. I think it is clear to see that all four of us are very proud representatives of coastal communities and communities that are well serviced and well protected by our surf lifesaving clubs. I am very pleased that they have made supportive and appreciative comments about the clubs in their electorates and the others that have been mentioned today.

Motion carried.

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