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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-28 Daily Xml
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Waite Electorate

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (15:38): What a huge year we have had in our community of Waite. I am so very proud to have not only the opportunity to represent the good people of Waite here in parliament and in the Malinauskas government but the absolute privilege of supporting our community and building resilience.

Christmas is just around the corner, and soon we will see community groups, sports clubs, school groups, churches, local businesses and even our Belair National Park parkrun come together for the Blackwood Christmas Pageant. With over 60 floats, it is gearing up to be a fabulous event as we await next year's big celebration of 60 years.

This year, we will be introducing a third MC to the route so everyone can understand and hear about what they are seeing. Last year, I asked a young year 11 student from St John's Grammar, Dhruv, to be our MC, and he is back again this year with his wingman Nicholas. They will be down the end. In the middle, our new added MC will be Twinkle from Blackwood High School, who just graduated this year.

Both of these students from the schools, with the help of Nick, are fabulous artists. They are great at performing arts, and I cannot wait to hear them on the microphone. This week, we all met up with Brenton Ragless, a very good friend of our community and a very experienced pageant caller, to talk to him about tips and tricks that these students will be able to use. It was such a fabulous time at Joan's Pantry. I know they are working on their repertoire.

We are pulling the pageant together with the Blackwood Lions Club and the ever-hardworking Daniel Clutterbuck in my office. They are getting all of the floats, all of the traffic and all of the people ready to have such a wonderful event next Friday night. With the help of SAPOL, SES and the City of Mitcham, it is going to be brilliant. The pageant will be followed by the Christmas fair at the Waite reserve, which is hosted by the Coromandel Rotary club. With entertainment, rides and food, it should be an absolute hoot.

As we head towards Christmas now, though, we are also heading towards bushfire season. I would like to encourage everybody in our community to dust off their bushfire survival plan and make sure they are ready to go. Over the past few weeks, I have hosted five bushfire forums, four of which were co-hosted with our primary schools. They have been a great opportunity for parents who cannot normally get to these events to come along and bring the kids. We fed them with a barbecue. The kids got to play on the trucks and squirt the hoses.

We went inside to listen to our excellent Natasha Huber from region 1, our community education officer. The kids had things to do like colouring in, getting badges and doing crosswords. I want to thank Caprice in my office, who is the queen of the kids and kept them entertained. We also heard from relevant SAPOL officers as they talked about Operation Nomad and why you see extra police on the streets during high and extreme days but more on catastrophic days. It was lovely of them to come along, join us and share in the festivities before we started, with the kids checking out their police cars and the sirens.

The really important message was about being safe and reporting if you see something suspicious on a bad day. Thanks to Rob and his team from Coromandel Valley Primary School, Andrew and his group from Eden Hills Primary School, Rob and the team from Belair Primary School and Adam and his helpers from Upper Sturt Primary School. It was an absolute privilege to be able to work with the schools to get our community to come along to these events. I also thank the Belair, Eden Hills, Coromandel Valley and Upper Sturt CFS captains and their volunteers, who gave up their time to be there to talk with the community, and also Dale Thompson, our Sturt group officer, who does a fabulous job of keeping all the brigades and all the volunteers ready for the fire season.

To our SAPOL officers; Jacob and Jane from the Sturt SES; Paula and Anne from ARTC; the Minister for Emergency Services, the member for Kavel; the Blackwood Action Group; the Rotary Club of Coromandel Valley; and the Upper Sturt CFS—thank you for being there, for cooking our barbecue and for sharing your thoughts. It is important that we all work together as a collective responsibility to be ready for the fire season. I would like to thank all our CFS volunteers in advance for the upcoming season. You all do so much to keep our community safe. I also want to thank your families, who see you walk out the door and worry for every minute that you are on the fireground. Please take care this season.

As the parliamentary year draws to a close, I would like to thank all the members here for their lively contributions. We all work very hard. I especially want to thank the staff who work here at Parliament House who keep everything going and support us so well. We would not be here without you. To my own EO staff, thank you for your tireless dedication to our community. It has been a very busy year. I know you have done a lot, and I just want you to know that I really appreciate you. Finally, to our community, have a fabulous Christmas. Stay safe. Make sure you do all you can to keep your family close, and I will see you in 2025.

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