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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-22 Daily Xml
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Marden Sports Complex

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (15:13): Today, I rise to speak about a dire situation involving the Marden Sports Complex. This has been quite an unfortunate development in recent times concerning this Marden Sports Complex. Yesterday, we heard that many users of the Marden Sports Complex have been told that they must find another location to practise, to play and to perform.

We heard yesterday, via an exclusive Channel 7 report, that users of this venue have been given a deadline of next Wednesday to find a different facility. This, of course, is very unfortunate for the clubs that use this facility, the schools that use this facility, but also the other organisations that are now in limbo—after-school trainings, potentially gone; tournaments, gone. Up to 4,000 players are said to use these courts each and every week. Players, parents, coaches, referees: these are all now in limbo. Full-time staff face job cuts, casual staff certainly face job cuts; these are now in limbo.

As one coach, Gary, put it, 'This is the only stadium that looks after east Adelaide schools,' and there are a lot of east Adelaide schools in various seats represented in this very chamber. He went on to say, 'All of these kids are now going to miss out on after school basketball.' One of the students was quoted as saying, 'It is depressing.' We are talking about up to 40 junior school teams that may have to now find another location, as well as close to 190 senior teams; that is a lot of teams. We understand that there were 58 students registered to play winter basketball alone who will now have to look elsewhere for a suitable court with not very much notice at all.

We also know that there certainly will be a loss of significant jobs. We know that there are a whole range of referees who are casually employed at this Marden Sports Complex. They will not necessarily be able to work there, and these referees often come through the ranks as players and move on to being a coach and then support as referees. Many of these referees offer their services more out of passion for the game than the actual financial incentive.

Many schools and out of hours school care groups also use and rely on this facility, and now they may be required to attend a separate sports facility or complex that is definitely going to be further away. It is my understanding that a lot of these out of school hours care groups, particularly during the holidays, will actually plan recreational outings to keep kids active and entertained. Of course, many adults also use the facility in the holidays as well. We know that kids will now miss out on this as a result of this decision.

We, on this side of the house, cannot advocate enough for keeping our kids healthy. We know that there are enormous preventative health benefits when you can keep kids healthy and active. As the former state Liberal government, we have shown this time and time again such as when we doubled the Sports Vouchers program to make sure that we can do what we can to keep kids active and incentivise adults to keep their kids active as well.

There is a high chance that many of these kids and adults will not be able to practise and play the sports that they love because of this decision. The state government, in my opinion, needs to come in now and step up to come up with some sort of bridging facility so that our kids and adults in our local area can stay active so that these thousands of users will not be left in limbo and so that the employees, referees, coaches and volunteers can continue sharing their skills and knowledge to the great benefit of our local community.

Today, what I will be doing is writing to the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing and I will be asking her and her government to intervene so that these players, these volunteers, these clubs, these schools and these organisations have a home ground to play at after next week as well.

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