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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-13 Daily Xml
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One Tree Hill Friendship Club

Ms LUETHEN (King) (15:30): It gives me much pleasure today to share a short story given to me to read out in this place by the senior citizens of the One Tree Hill Friendship Club, a remarkable group of King locals, many in their 90s, who meet once a week at the One Tree Hill Institute.

The One Tree Hill Friendship Club meets for socialisation, craft and afternoons of bingo from time to time. It has been my absolute pleasure to join in on the fun on multiple occasions since my election. On my last visit there, we had great fun moulding and throwing clay to make wind chimes, and on the visit before that I was asked to read out this short story that reflects times gone past:

Congratulations to all the kids who were born in the 1930s,40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K..

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no tablets, internet chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Football teams had trials and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are ONE OF THEM! Congratulations!

I thank the One Tree Hill senior citizens for welcoming me, for including me and for sharing your stories with me.

In closing, I want to mention that, on my last visit to the Friendship Club, two King constituents asked me to pass on their positive Lyell McEwin stories to the Minister for Health, and I have done this. They commended Lyell McEwin staff, and they said that they were treated very well on their visit. They both told me they had sent their stories of a good experience off to The Advertiser's Letter to the Editor, and both were really disappointed they had not been published. They are not sure whether our papers today want to publish good news.

I thank these constituents for sharing their good news story with me, and I told them that we are absolutely focused on improving health outcomes. It is a key priority for our government, and I look forward to sharing more good news and more good stories about better services in the future.

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