House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-12-02 Daily Xml

Contents

Badcoe Electorate

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (15:36): It has been a busy term, and especially busy in Badcoe. Although there are those in this place who see me working hard and fighting for our community and achieving things, and this seems to make them quite angry and even a bit vicious, I am pleased to say that I know that I am making a real difference in my community.

High among the things I have delivered is local sports infrastructure. It was a joy to open the new Goodwood Oval clubhouse a year ago. Hundreds of locals signed the petition to get that upgrade. It fills me with sheer joy to see it being used now by women and men, girls and boys, people of all cultures and abilities not only for sport but also for community activities.

My very first election commitment was upgrading Weigall Oval at Plympton. With funding from the former Labor government, I committed the initial funds followed by a council contribution. It is a splendid facility where I spend quite a lot of time as the No.1 ticketholder for the Adelaide Angels Baseball Club and also supporting the Cobras soccer.

I was also pleased to get new women's change rooms for the Millswood Bowls Club. I have advocated for scores of local clubs in my area to get Active Club grants, including the Plympton Halifax Calisthenics Club, which recently got new floorboards. The new synthetic pitch at the Cumberland Football Club at Clarence Gardens is getting excellent use, as well as Fund My Neighbourhood projects, including cricket sightscreens for the Goodwood Roos, a barbecue for the Goodie Saints and a new scoreboard at Goodwood Oval to round out the sport infrastructure delivery.

I also made a wealth of commitments in education before the last election. I was pleased as the candidate to announce Building Better Schools and STEM lab funding for a range of schools in my electorate: $7 million in total for Plympton International College, both new science labs and a new arts centre; $9 million for Hamilton Secondary's new space centre; $10 million for Springbank's upgrades, which we hope to see soon; new science labs at Plympton, Richmond, Goodwood and Forbes primary schools; and Fund My Neighbourhood projects at Edwardstown Primary and Ascot Park Primary—the veggie garden is going very well there.

I have also been pleased to see the community infrastructure, which I committed and which was funded by the previous Labor government, being delivered. That includes the upgrades of the playground at AA Bailey Reserve at Clarence Gardens, new air-conditioning units for Active Elders at Ascot Park, and I was delight to find a new home for the incredible children's charity Puddle Jumpers, which is something very close to my heart, and their work during COVID has been exceptional.

Following some lobbying of the council, the council forked out funds to deliver on my election commitment of upgrading Dumbarton Avenue Reserve after the government refused. Thank you to them. Another of my commitments at the last election was upgrading Kesmond Reserve at Keswick. I wrote to the Premier after the election about that one too, but unfortunately he would not fund it. But finally someone somewhere has realised the benefit of that election commitment and it is now also funded. I look forward to seeing that delivered albeit much later than Labor would have delivered that upgrade.

There are a few election commitments that have not been delivered by this government, despite funding being allocated by the former government. Forestville Hockey Club's promised new home has not materialised, despite the bipartisan commitments, and Black Forest Primary School is yet to get its promised upgrades, though hopefully they will come to fruition late next year, finally.

Maybe the thing I am most proud to have delivered for my community is a voice, a voice against the unfairness inflicted on our community, and unfortunately there have been a few. The Save Our School Zone fight saw thousands of families outraged at the sudden revocation of the new school zone. In my electorate, families at Marleston, Kurralta Park, Black Forest, Glandore and Clarence Park saw their children, who had hoped to attend city schools, suddenly evicted without notice.

I joined with my colleague the member for Torrens and our communities to oppose that outrageous and sudden decision by the government. But the attacks on education in our area did not stop there. Next they tried to shut down Springbank Secondary College and abandon Labor's $10 million investment to upgrade that school. We joined with the passionate parent community and we won the fight to save that school.

I have been highly engaged with my community over the future of the old Le Cornu site at Forestville for more than five years now and it is the suburb in which I live. My survey of more than 900 people reveals a desire to use the site for education or green space. I have also been advocating for my community against building developments that disadvantage our community and we have had a few wins.

But by far the most hard-fought battle has been over 192 Anzac Highway and the strip of land abutting the Glandore character zone. It has been the subject of much distress and, just as the residents thought they had won that fight, they were shocked in July to find that the three-storey height limit abutting the Glandore character zone was changed to eight storeys by the now former Minister for Planning. There is much more on this page that I would love to update you on but, hopefully, I will have the opportunity after March to continue as the member for Badcoe, a job for which I am so grateful.