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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-09-18 Daily Xml
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Salisbury Plays

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (15:28): I am very pleased to speak today about a wonderful event that was held in my electorate on Sunday, that is, the Salisbury Plays event at Bridgestone Reserve.

Salisbury Plays is an initiative of the City of Salisbury. It encourages families to head outside and discover the many play spaces in parks in the local community. It is a free family event and the theme was 'Families that play together stay together'. This was the second time the event has been held. We were very lucky with the weather, given that the previous day was showery and cold. It was a little bit cool, but there was a fantastic turnout of people.

There was face painting, food and coffee, come-and-try activities, live music, a petting zoo and giant kids' activities. There were also some exciting sports hosted by our wonderful local athletics and sports teams. Can I make a big shout out to the Northern Districts Athletics Club and the Salisbury Little Athletics Club for the exciting races on the day.

This year, the event was held at the Bridgestone Reserve, which is a significant new parkland, a recreation and fitness play space for all ages. This reserve was officially opened on 31 March 2017 by Mayor Gillian Aldridge and Bridgestone Australia and New Zealand managing director, Andrew Moffatt. The 6.8-hectare site was donated to the Salisbury community by Bridgestone following the closure of their local manufacturing operations in 2010. It has two spacious parkland areas, plenty of playground equipment (including a flying fox), a fitness loop, sheltered barbecues, a sheltered picnic area, toilet facilities, ample car parking, footpaths and lighting.

The Bridgestone Reserve is irrigated via stormwater management, something for which the City of Salisbury has built an international reputation of excellence. Most excitingly—and I see the former minister for sport is here—it received funding of $1 million in round 1 of the Sporting Surfaces Program for the installation of a synthetic athletics track. That was a very exciting announcement, a true commitment to our northern suburbs. This project will transform the local reserve into a regional athletics destination. The project will install on site an eight-lane (10-lane main straight), 400-metre synthetic athletics track and a large single D area for jump activities, steeplechase, triple jump facilities and throw events. I understand that this will be only the second location for a synthetic athletics track in South Australia.

In addition to assisting the local community at a club level, it will also be a well-suited position for local and regional school and interschool competitions, and it might act as a secondary or overflow state facility when the SA Athletics Stadium undergoes maintenance or repair. The track will be certified to meet the technical requirements for use in all international athletics competitions by the International Association of Athletics Federation. It will be fantastic.

This was the second time I went along to the Salisbury Plays event. I have to say that it is an event that my son looks forward to. He was there with the member for King and her son and, of course, the member for Wright, whose electorate it is now in; mine is on one side of the street and his is the other. He brought along his wonderful twins and his eldest daughter. It has been very well received and engages with lots of different community groups. There were probably more than 500 people there on Sunday, which has built up from the event that was held the year before. What I really like, when we hold an event in Salisbury, is the number and diversity of stallholders and organisations.

The Northern Districts Baseball Club was there, as were the Mawson Lakes Lions Club and the South Australian Parkour Association. Parkour is very interesting. You jump around all sorts of outside things. My son, who likes jumping on our lounge, had a good experience putting that to good use. The Para Hills Knights Soccer Club, the Salisbury rowing club, GKR Karate, the Rotary Club of Salisbury and the 1st Salisbury Scouts Group also attended.

I thank everyone who contributed, and the next Salisbury Plays event, which is partnered with Nature Play South Australia, will be held at St Kilda playground on Sunday 14 October.

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