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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-08-30 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Electorate

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (15:16): I rise to talk about my weekend in my local community. I was very much privileged to attend a number of events across the electorate, kicking off on Saturday, literally, at the final home game for the SANFL at Prospect Oval for the North Adelaide Roosters versus Sturt. It was the Beyond Bank community round and, win or lose, our club really is all about community. For this occasion, on Saturday we were wanting to acknowledge and celebrate all of our emergency services personnel.

We made sure that there was free entry for anyone who worked within the emergency services. We had lots of activities for kids, including various fire trucks, the SES and the MFS as well. We also held a special luncheon where I was able to join our emergency services minister, Joe Szakacs, at the luncheon and we were kindly asked to come up and speak about our love of sport and our love of community at the luncheon.

Obviously, growing up in a country town, I was able to speak about my early years where sport is something of a religion, particularly when you grow up in the South-East of the state in Naracoorte, and the emergency services minister was able to share his years as a somewhat competitive swimmer. I believe his claim to fame might be swimming against Olympian Ian Thorpe at some point, but he might be able to confirm that.

It was a lovely day. Although we did not get the outcome that we wanted this season, it really is just a huge part of the North Adelaide Roosters to support community, to back community and to get in behind all our community groups. I commend the North Adelaide Football Club and its leadership for everything they have done for the community this year and look forward to a strong season for the Roosters in 2024.

I was up very early on Sunday morning to open the Adelaide Marathon Festival. There were perfect conditions for all the runners on Sunday morning. I was able to join my primary school buddy at Naracoorte Primary School, Jessica Stenson—an Olympian and a commonwealth gold medallist—to open the marathon, the half marathon, the 10 kilometre and the five kilometre. There were just shy of 2,500 runners participating in this year's festival, and I want to give an enormous shout-out to the South Australian Road Runners Club, in particular their president, Sandeep Sekhar, and the race director, Jeremy Zieseniss, for all their work putting together this particular festival.

It does bring interstate runners across to our state. It is an absolutely wonderful opportunity to showcase our city and our Parklands and our running trails because that kind of fitness tourism is something that is really growing and I think that South Australia, in particular Adelaide and the CBD, has a huge role to play in encouraging people to be fit, healthy and active in our community.

Also on Sunday I had the enormous privilege of going along to St Andrew's Anglican Church at Walkerville to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the dedication of the church. I want to congratulate Reverend Sam Goodes; the priest's warden, Donna Coombe; and the people's warden, Sally Zimmerman, on putting together a huge array of celebrations for this amazing anniversary.

St Andrew's Anglican Church has a really beautiful community in Walkerville and we were able to have a beautiful service. I was privileged enough to read my own bible reading. I had lost my voice, but nothing was going to stop me from reading the bible reading and being a part of these celebrations.

To acknowledge the history of the church, I want to read a short extract from a letter from Geo Hawkes to Fred Halcomb in May 1906, recalling conversations and events with Mr McDonald regarding the founding of St Andrew's Church, Walkerville. This was compiled in 1914 and I think there are a couple of lines that really illustrate the beautiful day when this church was created. It states:

Another friend writing on the day tells us 'While the Bishop was pronouncing the apostolic benediction the sun burst forth and threw a stream of soft light through the richly stained glass, the effect of which was beautiful. The church is of limestone, with brick corners… The interior arrangement is extremely pretty and simple, the seats with Gothic heads are all open, with the exception of two pews each side of the door. It was seated for 180 people. The pulpit, desk and chancel rails are in perfect unison with the whole.

Once again, congratulations to St Andrew's Church in Walkerville.

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