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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-12 Daily Xml
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Morialta Community Awards

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (15:28): Today, I am pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Morialta Community Awards. Tonight we will welcome most of them into the house for dinner, along with their loved ones, and I thank them for their service to the community. One of the award winners is Phil Smyth, a charter member of the Athelstone Kiwanis Club. This year Phil celebrated 41 years of serving our local community through Kiwanis. He has been there every step of the way offering dedicated volunteer service in the aid of others.

Chris and Fay Ward of the Rostrevor Campbelltown Kiwanis Cub are extremely familiar faces around our community and were very popular awardees. They raise money for charity, support local projects and, in addition to their longstanding service to Kiwanis, also work hard to support community and council events.

Next is Tony Fuda of the Eastern United Football Club. Tony's leadership at the club has enabled participation of hundreds of budding local soccer players over the years and his advocacy helped the club achieve their pitch and clubroom upgrades. Over the last three years, Tony's work to create the Silver Saints walking group has created new opportunities for dozens of seniors in our area to keep active, social and healthy.

Graeme Packer is a long-serving member of the Rotary Club of Morialta. He is always the first to roll up his sleeves whenever anybody needs help, and he has made his mark in some significant ways. The Thorndon Park community kiosk and the Athelstone Community Workshop are thriving, in no small part thanks to Graeme's leadership, along with the success of countless events supporting our local community and global Rotary charities.

Alan Cushway is another Rotarian of longstanding merit. Alan was one of the first people to come and see me after I was first elected because he was eager to get my support for Rotary programs, including the RYDA initiative, promoting road safety. At the community workshop, he has been an active worker since it opened in 2009, attending multiple sessions each week, giving many hours preparing accounts and banking and cooking the barbecue.

Maria Mignone has been contributing to our community for 50 years through a range of activities, particularly through her dedicated volunteering efforts at the Campania Club. Whether in the kitchen, serving on the floor, or elsewhere in the club and the community, she has helped keep alive authentic traditions that help maintain some of the most celebrated aspects of modern multicultural South Australia.

Abraham Shuken's coaching efforts with the Adelaide Community Basketball Association, located at the ARC, and the connections he makes with young people saw him recently awarded the Aussie Hoops National Coach of the Year award. But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what he does for our community. On governing councils at Highbury Primary and Charles Campbell College, Abraham has advocated not just for his own children but for our community at large. In 2018, his doorknocking efforts, collecting signatures for a petition, led directly to the construction of a pedestrian refuge on Lower North East Road.

The next winner is Deepa Ranjith. From the moment Deepa and her family came to our community, she has been making a contribution. As a performer and a teacher of Indian classical dance, she has helped enrich a range of community events, including here at Parliament House, with her performances and those of her more than 300 students.

Other winners included Tim and Michaela Moors. Morialta Secondary College performing arts leader, Tim, and drama teacher Michaela are recognised for their exceptional work establishing a wonderful culture for performance, creativity and connection to community at this new school. Their wide range of music and drama events included this year the inaugural school musical. Around 60 per cent of Morialta students are learning an instrument, which is an extraordinary achievement that supports academic achievement and school culture.

The final winners are Enrico Paterni and Orietta Ferraro of Baretto Cafe Bottega. Growing up in Rostrevor, as I did, the old Forest Avenue deli was an institution. When it closed in 2023, it was the end of an era, but Enrico and Orietta saw the potential for something new and more exciting. They put their money where their mouth was, took the risks and invested themselves completely in sharing their vision with our community. It is now a thriving hub of activity every day, drawing people to Forest Avenue from near and far. They feed 50 kilograms of coffee beans to local residents every week—and they are not even open on Sundays—and the community appreciates them in return.

I congratulate all the winners of the Morialta Community Awards 2025 and thank everyone who submitted nominations. Although I am leaving the parliament, I hope these recognitions will continue, and we are already getting the next four award winners ready to present before the election. I am pleased that Liberal candidate Scott Kennedy has confirmed that, if he is successful, he will continue to offer these awards.

Sir, as you know, Scott is a lifelong local who demonstrates his commitment to volunteering and community every week at the Athelstone CFS, where I think you might have met him when you were the emergency services minister a decade ago. I am not surprised by his commitment. I hope it will be matched by the others. I once again put on the record my sincere thanks to all of those winners and their loved ones.

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