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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-25 Daily Xml
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Get Home Safe Foundation

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:19): In parliament today, I take the opportunity to speak about the Get Home Safe round that I attended in February. It is run by the Get Home Safe Foundation and was hosted by the Glenelg District Cricket Club. In fact, it is the second season that the club has hosted it.

The Get Home Safe round is aimed at highlighting the need for better attitudes on our roads and also the consequences of poor decisions made while driving. Eli Murn is the ambassador for the Get Home Safe round, and at the after match presentations held at the Glenelg District Cricket Club, Eli told his story to all the teams that were present, ranging from the under 12s right through to the senior teams. Eli grew up as an active kid. He was very coordinated and competitive, and he played a variety of sports ranging from ball through to cricket, where he was an opening fast bowler.

He also happened to grow quite quickly as a young lad and ended up playing basketball and volleyball, where he certainly excelled. He was a member of the Volleyball Australia Centre of Excellence, playing with the South Australian under-17 team, and also the under-21 South Australian Sports Institute squad.

Eli's under-17 state team won the national championships and because of this and his performance there, he was invited to attend training camps with the men's volleyball team, the Australian men's under-21 volleyball squad. Eli required a positive and success-focused attitude to excel in this sport. Unfortunately, as Eli admitted to all the players, he made really poor choices on the roads. In fact, he chose to take risks on the road for what he thought was fun, and what he mistakenly thought would impress people.

Unfortunately, he did not impress people when he crashed his car into two pine trees on a very wet night in the Hills. Eli nearly died that night; thankfully, his girlfriend at the time walked away unhurt. Eli said that she kept on walking and he never heard from her again. Eli was rushed to Flinders hospital by ambulance and was only given a 50 per cent chance of survival. He spent eight weeks in hospital. Eli was left with a permanent brain injury and has had to spend the past two years in rehabilitation learning how to do the basics: how to walk, how to talk, how to feed himself and how to use the toilet.

Every aspect of Eli's life has changed significantly, and any chance of playing competitive sport was completely lost. Eli really does wish that he had taken as much pride in his driving as he did in his sporting endeavours. You can imagine all the cricketers listening to this. The whole room was silent as Eli told his story.

The message he wanted to impart upon them was to try to transfer successful on-field behaviours over to those needed whilst on the roads, and to cut out poor choices on the road that can lead to, as Eli said, life-changing injuries. I congratulate the President of the Get Home Safe Foundation Darren Davis, all the Glenelg District Cricket Club players, and their president Jarret Moyse on promoting the Get Home Safe round.

Here we are in March, in unprecedented times, when sport across the country has been stopped in the fight to stop the spread of the coronavirus. I think the message we heard that night is still relevant: being the best you can be on the sporting field and taking those behaviours onto the road. This can equally be applied to how we as individuals can take those behaviours and act to slow the spread of the virus—behaviours such as discipline, teamwork and care for your teammates. I am certain these young athletes can use those skills they have developed to be leaders in the community.

We all have personal responsibility to slow the spread of this virus by washing our hands frequently, coughing into our elbows and undertaking social distancing, and also limiting non-essential gatherings and keeping away from each other to reduce those numbers. All these measures are new to so many Australians and will need to be in place for many months. It will take discipline, teamwork—one in, all in—and it will take care for your teammates, who in this case are your fellow Australians. Together, we can do this. I know that those cricketers at Glenelg District Cricket Club, like so many other sportspeople in our community, can lead by example and help to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

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