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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-29 Daily Xml
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Neighbour Day

Mrs POWER (Elder) (12:24): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises Neighbour Day on 29 March 2020;

(b) acknowledges the importance of connectedness in the social wellbeing of local communities; and

(c) recognises the efforts of local clubs, groups and societies in building strong local communities.

When I laid my notice of motion before the house in February this year, I expected to be standing here today delivering a very different kind of speech. I had anticipated that I would be sharing with the house the wonderful way in which communities had come together to celebrate Neighbourhood Day, the importance of doing so and some of the gatherings and events within my electorate that residents were involved in.

Under the current circumstances, with the social distancing measures introduced in response to the spread of the coronavirus, the usual celebrations of Neighbour Day, the physical coming together of communities, were simply not possible. However, the importance of connectedness within one's community and with neighbours and simply looking out for each other at a time of physical separation remains more relevant than ever.

Each year, normally Neighbour Day is celebrated in Australia on the last Sunday in March, meaning this year it was set to be on 29 March. Neighbour Day was founded in Melbourne in March 2003 in response to the terrible finding of the remains of Mrs Brown, an elderly woman who had passed away two years prior and had remained undiscovered in her own home. Taking positive steps towards ensuring such a sad situation does not happen again, Neighbour Day was created as an annual celebration of community, encouraging people to connect with those who live in their neighbourhood.

The day itself has progressed from a reminder to connect with elderly neighbours to an annual celebration of strong communities and friendly streets. So, while we must be physically distant right now, human connection to ensure the wellbeing of others around us is absolutely crucial, especially while many in our community are forced into being socially isolated. This is reinforced by Relationships Australia, which oversees Neighbour Day. Relationships Australia is a provider of relationship and community support and family safety services and is promoting the power of the Australian community to support our most vulnerable, to tackle loneliness and to help ensure healthy and safe relationships throughout this pandemic and beyond.

Neighbour Day is a catalyst to encourage people across all communities to build and strengthen their social connections not just on one day but also throughout the year. This can still be practised at this time, and it is especially important for everyone to be creative and find other ways to connect and engage with their neighbours and communities. During our current COVID-19 pandemic there are many ways in which connection is being encouraged, such as online or virtual connections or small acts of kindness, such as leaving calling cards with a kind message and your phone number for those who are isolated. I know we have seen many examples of these caring acts, like people leaving care packages on their neighbours' doorsteps.

The risk this necessary physical isolation poses has been recognised by the Marshall Liberal government. The Red Cross Telecross REDi service was activated last month. It is a free daily potentially life-saving phone call checking on the welfare of vulnerable South Australians in response to COVID-19. It means that vulnerable people, their neighbours, friends or loved ones can register with the Telecross REDi COVID-19 service, and anyone already registered with the service will automatically receive COVID-19 service support.

Another component of the Marshall government's strong plan is the $1.6 million funding boost specifically to help ensure vulnerable South Australians are supported locally during COVID-19. The $1.6 million injection will be spent over the next three months and includes funding for the food relief sector, including funding for Foodbank, OzHarvest, SecondBite, Meals on Wheels in South Australia, charities and NGOs so that they can give emergency relief to vulnerable South Australians, including supermarket and pharmacy vouchers and to help with cost of living pressures; funding for the Salvation Army, who provide the Affordable SA Helpline and National Debt Helpline in South Australia; and further funding for existing providers within the statewide financial counselling program.

One of the largest SA venue management organisations, which operates the Adelaide Convention Centre, the Adelaide Entertainment and Cooper Stadium, is also producing up to 10,000 meals a day to support community catering organisations. It is enabling groups like Meals on Wheels to continue delivering food to the most vulnerable in our communities and has the benefit of keeping staff in jobs.

With the repurposing of their venues and their commercial kitchens, Adelaide Venue Management are helping with an unprecedented demand on the food relief sector and are producing up to 18,000 three-course meals each week. This is crucial support that is helping Meals on Wheels bridge the supply gap. Adelaide Venue Management is also urging other community organisations to contact them if they need meal preparation support. What a fantastic example of a South Australian organisation stepping up to help the community at this unprecedented time.

While not related to Neighbour Day specifically, this act of connecting, looking after and supporting each other is exactly what the day is all about. Just because Neighbour Day occurred in March this year does not mean that it cannot be celebrated at any other time throughout the year, perhaps down the track when our restrictions have been lifted and eased.

I take this opportunity to commend the City of Mitcham in my electorate of Elder that recently got behind Neighbour Day in an innovative way and created a competition for residents to submit and share what is great about their street. What a wonderful idea. They also offered the random winners of the competition barbecue vouchers so that they could then host a Neighbour Day celebration on their own street. While the events of Neighbour Day could not go ahead due to COVID-19, the streets of the City of Mitcham are set to sizzle with community barbecues in September 2020 instead, assuming that restrictions are lifted by that time.

Some of the submissions that the City of Mitcham received in their competition shared stories of incredible neighbours, such as a coordinated meal swap that sees four families in one street participating. Each family has a day on which they cook and deliver a meal to the other three families, meaning you are only organising dinner two nights of your working week. There are people acknowledging new families who have moved into the neighbourhood and wanting to progress their friendship from a wave and a smile to sharing a meal. There is also one family, Janette and her husband, who put on a community meal for the local residents in their street.

A couple who moved to the City of Mitcham in the last two years advised that they would have paid more for their property had they known the well-connected neighbours and family community that they were becoming a part of when moving in. It goes to show that having a connection with neighbours can be valuable in more ways than one.

This ANZAC Day just past also saw neighbours come together to recognise this very important day in a different way. Light Up The Dawn was a beautiful coming together of neighbours and community in their own remembrance ceremonies. Many lit a candle at dawn in their homes, on their driveways or on their balconies, as did my husband and I. Such respect and magnitude were still shared amongst neighbours and our community, even though we could not physically stand together at our local RSLs, as we normally would.

The spirit of community within our neighbourhoods currently also takes the form of the very cute display of teddy bears in windows. When walking around your neighbourhood, it is not unusual to see teddy bears in windows, on fences or sitting in cars. I know that there are so many streets and neighbourhoods in my electorate where there are teddy bears dotted all over the place. Why, you may ask, Mr Deputy Speaker? For teddy bear hunts.

While playgrounds have been closed and social distancing is in place, it has been harder to find activities for children who are at home. Our community has come together in support and recognition by displaying the bears so that children can spot them whilst out on walks. It is fun for kids and adults alike, but also a demonstration of unity and looking out for each other. This is exactly what Neighbour Day is all about.

In summary, it is more important than ever that connectedness and social wellbeing of local communities is recognised. Whether that be a friendly wave to a neighbour, a calling card offering assistance to another community member or a phone call to a friend, we can still be connected and supported even while socially distancing at this time. This is the purpose of Neighbour Day and one that can be practised all year round. I commend all the people in my electorate in particular who have gone out of their way during the COVID-19 pandemic to be incredible neighbours. I commend this motion to the house.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (12:33): I take great pleasure in rising as lead speaker for the opposition in regard to the celebration of Neighbour Day. Neighbour Day is a celebration that has been going on across Australia for about 17 years. As we know from history, Neighbour Day was founded on a neighbourhood tragedy. Sadly, it is a tragedy that we have seen much more of in recent decades, as our communities have changed in their fabric and many communities have distanced themselves from neighbourhood connections.

Sadly, I admit we had a neighbour only a couple of doors down who we did not know lived there for about 18 months. We bumped into them in the street and realised that we had known them for years, but we had not seen them. This was a few years ago, clearly, because we have made sure now that we are much more connected and know who lives in our backyard, etc. As history has shown us, social media, the use of mobile telephones and a whole range of other things have drawn us away from the deep connections that used to be very close neighbourhood celebrations over the years.

In terms of this Neighbour Day being celebrated again on the last Sunday of March, unusually we have found ourselves in a position where we could not knock on our neighbours' doors. In fact, one week before this, South Australia rightfully closed its borders and we were in midst of social distancing principles. These principles have kept us away from our neighbours and made it impossible to have physical contact with each other.

My husband, my son and I returned from Queensland on 22 March, the day the borders closed. We returned in the evening, so we returned after the declaration and did the right thing and put ourselves into isolation for two weeks. I felt very lucky to be in isolation with my family, with my son and my husband, so we had the capacity to look after each other and we had physical contact with each other. However, many people in isolation found themselves at home by themselves with nobody to have physical contact with or to share that experience, and for those people this has been incredibly tough.

Throughout that whole experience of self-isolation we had many people reaching out to us from the neighbourhood, many friends reaching out to us, saying, 'Are you okay? Is there anything we can do for you?' We had people tooting their horns as they went past in their cars. We had people dropping things off at the doorstep for us. When people asked us whether we were okay, I said, 'Of course we are. We've got nothing to complain about. We have each other.' We had plenty of things to keep us occupied in terms of home schooling. Oh, what a joy that is! I realise now why I did not become a teacher. My husband did a great job of that.

I also was incredibly busy fielding so many inquiries from people who were struggling. People were struggling with the rules of isolation and also struggling to get supplies. As we saw through the early times of the declared pandemic and the situation in our neighbourhood, we ran down on essentials—sanitary supplies, like toilet paper, hand sanitisers, soap, tissues, and then came the wave of staple items for pantries as people rediscovered home cooking.

The butchers did very well, I am told. They are telling me that their sales have gone through the roof because people are not able to eat out. I think that some of this has connected us in a very different way, but in a way that is intended by Neighbour Day. We have been able to look out for each other. We have been making more of an effort to connect with each other and we have decided through this time that we do actually need each other.

From the inquiries, the requests and contacts that were made to me throughout the period of early isolation and confusion around the pandemic and where it was heading, we did have many requests put to us about things that were anticipated to be required, and it gave us as a team the opportunity to look at ways that we would offer some solutions, be constructive and work with the government to provide some support and some ideas for the community.

I will just list off a couple of things I wrote about to the minister in the other place, the Hon. Michelle Lensink. I also spoke to her on the phone about an issue. Early in the piece we reached out to all the peak bodies and to many of the not-for-profits, and we have continued that conversation with them. Obviously it is very important to speak to the people who are working on the ground.

Even before we dove too deeply into social isolation—or physical isolation, which has ultimately become social—we identified that volunteers would not be able to volunteer anymore because they were at high risk, and these volunteers support our neighbours and our communities. Some of the special places they carry out these roles were also not going to be able to open; we are talking about community centres, neighbourhood centres, sporting clubs, a whole range of places across our community that are usually the heart of the neighbourhood.

I spoke to the people who operate these places, such as Kylie Fergusen from Community Centres SA, and spent time talking with Evelyn O'Loughlin from Volunteering SA & NT, asking them if there were any ideas. Interstate there had been some funding given to these peaks and organisations in order to support the programs and good work that would be needed in the future, and we wrote to the minister about that.

We identified very early on that food security was going to be an issue. That sent us on a journey of looking at who was providing what in the community, and we advocated on behalf of a number of organisations. There was an excellent program kicked off in Victoria by the Daniel Andrews government which supported the provision of supplies to people in isolation, and that was a partnership between the already well-established program being operated by the Red Cross, where they reach out the community, and Foodbank, which provided the hampers to be delivered to the community.

We have seen, through the commitment of money from the state government and the federal government and many great conversations with our emergency food networks, our local councils, and other organisations throughout South Australia, funding for the provision of hampers and meals across South Australia. In particular we have given support to funding the Puddle Jumpers program, which is doing drive-through food pickups for vulnerable people. I volunteered there a couple of weeks ago and have offered support for their program. It is quite confronting to see the number of people who need to come and get food because they are unable to afford it, because they have been stood down from work and are not eligible for payments.

People are very humbled by the generosity of these organisations. Foodbank is doing an amazing job, as they always have, and OzHarvest and SecondBite, Meals on Wheels—all of these fantastic organisations are doing a great job. We have advocated for Treasure Boxes with the Minister for Child Protection, and with the member for Badcoe and other great local people we attended the official opening of their warehouse down in Edwardstown. Sadly, they had to close their doors for some weeks because of the lack of volunteers to support the operation, so I have also written to the minister requesting support for that.

I am really happy to see the parliamentary kitchen delivering meals out to the community, and I also want to congratulate our team on supporting Our Neighbourhood with 11,000 calls this week, bringing it to a total of 40,000 in the last few weeks. That is what neighbourhoods are about.

The Hon. R. SANDERSON (Adelaide—Minister for Child Protection) (12:44): I thank the member for Elder for introducing this motion. One of my favourite days of the year is Neighbour Day and I have been going for several years now. I have been in this house for 10 years, and probably for most of those it has been widely celebrated in the Adelaide city council area, in particular.

As we have already heard, this started out of a 2003 tragedy in Victoria when there was a story of a woman found dead in her home; she had been there for three years. That sort of sparked the movement by Andrew Hislop and he came up with the idea that was then taken on.

A similar thing happened for me not long after being elected. I vividly remember in 2011 hearing a story on the news of a woman in Sydney who had also died in her home and had not been discovered for eight years. I remember being a local member thinking, 'I do not want that to happen in my electorate. I want my community to be connected, I want to know what is going on for them, I want to be part of including them and connecting them back into the community.'

One of the things that I set about doing early on as a local member was to put together information sheets by council of everything that was on because, as a new member of parliament, what I found not only through my doorknocking was that I was finding little halls and sports and things that I was not aware of, and I had grown up in the area. I thought, 'If I had known there was a ballet school down this side street, maybe I would have joined.' There were so many activities and things that happened.

As a local member, you are invited to functions at the local churches, there are eat-and-greets, there are different exercise activities, there are all these things, and I thought, 'How does everyone else find out about this?' Unless you are good on computers, which many elderly people are but not all, and not all of them have computers, and unless you know what it is that you are actually searching for, how do you know what to look for and how to find it?

Back in 2010 and 2011 when I was new, there was not really much hard copy information, or any that I saw, going out to people in my electorate, so I put together a directory that was hard copy, posted out that told you what was on, when it was on, how much it cost, whether there was a free local bus in Prospect—they have a community bus and there is one in the city—that could take people. Walkerville and Prospect often share. They have combined community lunches for the seniors and they also have pickup with bus services.

I put that together and posted it out to give people an idea and try to connect my community. Again, through working with Meals on Wheels, I was quite surprised by how many people live alone and that the only visitor they had was the Meals on Wheels person. We put their blinds down and re-fixed their television stations that had stopped working and did little odd jobs for them because there were no other visitors. In the Adelaide electorate I believe we have the highest number of single people living alone, so social isolation is a huge issue. As a local member, I have really sought to do what I can to connect people back into the community.

Because I try to get out and meet people, I went to one of the cooking classes in North Adelaide at the community centre that I had actually put on my list. One of the ladies I sat next to said that she had not actually left her house for two years after her son had died by electrocution. She was so upset, distraught and traumatised by that she had not left the house. It was actually receiving my information in the mail that gave her the idea and told her what was on and when it was on in a very easy format—she did not have to go online and find it—that actually prompted her to leave the house for the first time to do a social activity.

I was absolutely thrilled that the information that I had put together was actually beneficial and it had achieved its intent, which was bringing people together as a community. I went on further to develop a directory for parents and babies, which was well received, particularly by new migrants who do not have families or connections here and who are not aware of the kindergyms, the rhyme times, the library readings and the free creche at the Aquatic Centre, things that were available to them.

Many of them contacted my office to say that it really gave them their life back and that they could actually connect with the community in a way and meet other people because they did not know anyone here. That was the same for people who grew up here as well who were used to being professional working women and were then at home for the first time, particularly women who had children later, who did not have a cohort of all their school or uni friends having children and were really pleased to get information to help connect them back into the community.

It is a real shame that this year, for the first time, we did not have Neighbour Day. However, over the years I have been able to go to some wonderful events. I commend particularly the Adelaide city council for the work that they have done and their support in closing off side streets and laneways and providing giant chess sets and Jenga sets and all kinds of things. The council has been very supportive and proactive in encouraging that connectedness throughout the community, particularly in the city and North Adelaide.

I recall there was a regular community movie night and sausage sizzle in the Wita Wirra park (Park 18), which is on South Terrace. Everyone was set up, all comfortable with their beanbags and chairs. The city council had forgotten to turn off the automatic sprinklers. When they came on, everyone grabbed all their gear and took off very, very quickly. That was fixed for the following year. Everyone was a bit hesitant to get too comfortable before they made sure that the sprinklers were not going to come on.

I have been to Neighbour Day events on Claxton Street, which included garage sales and tree planting. Reeces Lane also included planting one year. Stanley Street has an amazing function. They actually close off part of the street every year. The kids ride their bikes around and do chalk drawings on the road, and they have several different barbecues. A couple of years someone has even brought their horse down to go for a bit of a ride along the street. It is wonderful to see neighbours meeting each other for the first time and people who have moved into the street making wonderful connections.

I have been to barbecues for newly arrived students of St Mark's College. Common Ground had a wonderful morning tea. I have met people at Uno who now are still my Facebook friends and I see the pets that they have. It has been a really wonderful connection. The Box Factory has shared meals and barbecues. One year they had a quiz night that I attended. There are really some wonderful ideas, particularly when they have gardening and shared meals. Some of them set up very formal, long tables down the middle of their street. For others it is more casual, but it is a really good opportunity.

As we know, we could not celebrate Neighbour Day this year—and the theme, ironically, was social connection—as we are now living in an era of social distancing and social isolation. However, we are learning new ways to connect. We are having driveway dinners. I have had several Zoom dinner parties where we all compare what we have cooked and what we have been doing. I have now started to go to Teams and Zoom meetings for Neighbourhood Watch, Rotary and different community meetings. I went to a Kiwanis Zoom breakfast meeting yesterday. There are people dropping off notes in letterboxes, offering help and meals. It is really a different way of showing neighbourly love and community spirit.

Being home more often than I have ever been before on weekends because there are fewer community events, I have been able to see my neighbours and give them some of my eggs from my bantam Minorcas that are producing more eggs than I can eat personally. It is wonderful. We are looking at a new way of community. I think there are a lot of positives that we can take into the future of ways that we can connect. With Zoom dinner parties I am catching up with friends from interstate that I often do not see for several years, so you can actually connect—it is just in a different way.

As we come out of this COVID crisis, we are doing a fantastic job as a community by keeping our distance from people, remaining healthy, keeping our hands clean and doing all the right things. In South Australia we really are leading the country, if not the world, in our outcomes. Let's just hope that we can come back after this, stronger than before.

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (12:53): I, too, rise to speak in support of this motion and to acknowledge Neighbour Day, our annual celebration of community and connection, held on the last Sunday of March each year to encourage neighbours to connect with one another. As for so many other great annual events, physically getting together for this year's Neighbour Day was of course curtailed by this COVID-19 crisis. Our willingness to safely connect, however, with kindness is absolutely not curtailed, with rich examples of people looking out for each other, safely reaching out to one another during this crisis, being celebrated every single day in a demonstration, not just on Neighbour Day, of what being a good neighbour is all about.

In many ways, prior to COVID-19 many people were expressing disappointment at feeling less connected with their neighbours than in the past with technology on the rise, the art of dropping in on the decline, less face-to-face conversation and people less likely to allow their kids to play out the front. Many people are now reflecting on that lack of connection and more than ever thinking about how they can authentically reach out to others, see how they are going, see if they need a hand.

My own street had an online Easter party, heartily lit up the dawn to pay our respects on ANZAC Day, coordinates taking the bins in and out for those who need a hand and is just about to coordinate an online quiz night. Kindness is on the rise. New or perhaps old ways to reach out in adversity to fellow community members are being voraciously explored and celebrated, and our compassion for the plight of those doing it toughest is thankfully on the rise.

Children are writing letters thanking health workers, neighbours are shopping and baking for each other, schools are encouraging their local communities to come up with new dance moves, communities are delivering home-cooked dinners to those who cannot get out, friends everywhere were sharing footage of Italian community members connecting balcony to balcony via song and relishing in the joy and connection of that.

People are innovating and thinking about how they can safely check in and be in touch with one another, how they can offer help, how they can make sure everyone gets their share of toilet paper, and an opportunity to relentlessly sanitise their hands. This kindness is inspiring. It is to be treasured and held onto long after this crisis finally passes. It is what we often pride ourselves on as being all about. It is so simple but so at the core of what we should always focus on: authentic human connection and community conversation.

The theme for Neighbour Day 2020 was social connection. Social connection is what keeps so many people free from loneliness, what keeps them mentally, emotionally and physically healthy, and it is at the core of our community being safe, healthy and kind. When I call to check in on people in our community, I am hearing lovely stories of what people do to look after one another to keep people socially connected, and these stories give me hope about just how aware our community is about what makes a difference and about what makes people know that they are noticed, included, seen and heard, and how willing we are to keep people connected, about how a real conversation—simply listening to someone—can change someone's day.

Neighbour Day is all about authentic relationships, creating new relationships, renewing past relationships, creating ongoing connections between people and their communities, between neighbours and neighbours. It is what community life should always be about. Attending Neighbour Day events in previous years has often led people to join community groups or begin organising their own events. This year, as the organising committee moved activities online, new, safe ways of joining groups was established. New connections were made.

Neighbour Day reminds us all of the deep value of the social, emotional and mental health benefits that come from connecting with others, of actively participating in social groups and in every aspect of community life. This is particularly often the case for older South Australians who can often experience isolation due to a lack of mobility.

As I mentioned, over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to talk with many older South Australians in our southern community and I have to say that one of the most enjoyable parts of being an MP, of being a member of our human family, is just having a chat with a fellow community member, seeing how someone is going, someone who has lost sometimes a lifelong partner or whose children have grown up and moved away. Just to share that brief human connection lifts your spirits, and Neighbour Day is all about just that: genuine human connection that creates relationship.

I thank all who organise Neighbour Day, and I commend our southern and broader community for all they are doing to keep connected to raise the spirits of their neighbours and all in our community on Neighbour Day, around Neighbour Day and always.

Mrs POWER (Elder) (12:59): I would like to thank all the members who made a contribution to this motion. The member for King was prepared to make a contribution but, due to time restraints, has not been able to do so.

Motion carried.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

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