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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-04 Daily Xml
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Chaffey Electorate Sporting Clubs

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:00): I would like to speak about some of the grassroots sports in South Australia. As we know, sports are one of the key components of healthy living, growing up and building great communities and societies and are particularly critical to regions and electorates such as Chaffey.

We understand the importance of recreation clubs and sporting grounds and their role in increasing the health and wellbeing of local communities, but we need improved positive social interactions. To do that, it is about promoting sport, it is about activity and it is about giving the fabric to a regional community, particularly in the Riverland and the Mallee, where the benefits have flow-on effects for the whole community rather than just those who participate and are part of that sporting activity.

We remember the names: Ebert, Lindner, Fielke, Ricciuto, Schammer, Modra, Beech, Light, Darling, Eddington and Schubert, as well as both Malcolm Hill and Alex Hill—a great sporting family. That is just to name a few of those great sportspeople who have come from the Riverland and are now mentors to the young.

Just recently, I was busy out and about in the electorate, giving out the Active Club grant certificates and funding. We had the Marshall government's Active Club reboot round announced in November 2020 and what we have seen so far is those 48 successful clubs now out there reaping and sharing the rewards of that reboot round. This is an initiative that I think has really given some confidence to those clubs.

Even though in most instances it has been a small amount of money, it just gives them the impetus to go and put some more equipment there and to give those young ones the hope they will one day reach the heights of some of those greats I have just mentioned. Of course, the voucher program of $100 per junior sportsperson has been widely embraced by those junior sportspeople. In particular, we have seen Aussie Rules, we have seen netball, we have seen calisthenics and we have seen gymnastics having great uptake in the Riverland.

I will just name a few of those successful clubs that I have been out hand-delivering some of those certificates to. There are many of them, but I would like to mention them because they are such important institutions in a small regional community. Firstly, the Berri Basketball Association and Olivia O'Leary-Fletcher, the Berri Netball Club and Chrissy Eleftheriadis, and the Berri Water Ski Club and Lachy Winnall, who is a very keen enthusiast when it comes to water skiing. I do not think he does much water skiing, but he is very keen and very supportive of that club.

There is also the Loxton Football Club with Steve Blaser and Tracey Reichelt; the Loxton District Bowling Club; the Loxton Kart Club; the Moorook Bowling Club with Michael Smith, who is one of the committee members there; the Renmark Tintra Tennis Club with John Pick, who is an absolute stalwart and a tennis legend in regional South Australia; the Renmark Table Tennis Club and Dennis Robinson; the Riverland Lawn Tennis Association, again headed up by John Pick as president; and the Berri Hockey Club with Zac Arruzzolo, who I visited out at the great synthetic turf courts down there at Berri.

I will also mention the Brown's Well Netball Club, with Erin Gibbs and Anita Leach out there flying the flag for Brown's Well, one of the great independent clubs; the Waikerie Tennis Club and Jamie Myer; the Waikerie Amateur Basketball Association with Hannah Lehmann, who is a great sportsperson, a great advocate and a great mentor for women's sport at Waikerie; The Lawns bowling club, with Peter Brown as treasurer; the Renmark Basketball Club, with Kieran Johnson doing a great job as grant coordinator; Renmark Kart Club and Jayne Gelston; the Riverland Cruising Boat Club, with Elaine Ashworth as the secretary; and the Waikerie Gliding Club, with Bill Mudge a long-time supporter of and advocate for that club.

At the Waikerie Horse and Pony Club, Juanita Herzog is doing a great job, and at the Riverland Dinghy Club, Sue Jenke is doing an outstanding job. She is the anchor person for the dinghy club, which has now become almost world famous after having Red Bull as one of their corporate sponsors.

The Loxton Tennis Club, with Phil Smith as their president, are doing a great job, as are the Loxton Pistol Club with Michael Pennington and the Barmera Golf Club with Brian Finn. Of course, he is a longstanding advocate of the Barmera Golf Club, doing great things and making it a real destination. The Renmark Small Bore Rifle Club is also doing a great job.

This is just to name a few of the clubs that have been recipients of the Reboot Round, and there are many more. I hope to soon be out there, presenting more certificates and making sure that they have their funding so that they can improve their club, attract juniors and make sure that sport is the fabric of a regional community.

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