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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-06-14 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Aquatic Centre

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (15:24): On the subject of regions, I want to give a shout-out to our cabinet, who were down in the South-East last week, including in my home town of Naracoorte, talking about the significant investment they are making in our regional communities, and in particular the investment in Naracoorte Hospital where my three brothers and I were born. I congratulate the country cabinet on their time spent in our really important regions.

Today, I stand to speak on an exciting development, our investment in the new Adelaide Aquatic Centre. It is an $82.4 million project in a regional facility that is going to keep people in our local community, keep them active, fit and healthy and ultimately connected to their communities. Today is an exciting first step in the development of the new Adelaide Aquatic Centre, where we begin official consultation on the final location of the preferred site for the Aquatic Centre. We are looking at three locations within Park 2 in North Adelaide: the south-east, the south-west and the north-east.

We have various ways in which the community can participate in this consultation. We have drop-in sessions on Wednesday 22 June between 4pm and 7pm and on Saturday 25 June from 1pm to 4pm at the Adelaide Inn on O'Connell Street, North Adelaide. You can go along at any time and talk to some of our departmental staff about specifics around the locations within Park 2: south-east, south-west and north-east.

There is also a pop-up information stand at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre during opening hours, which will be staffed regularly, and you can also go online on the Department for Infrastructure and Transport's website at www.dit.sa.gov.au/aac. There is an online survey you can fill out or you can also drop a pin on the map to provide your feedback. You can do this until 5pm on Sunday 10 July.

In order to be able to give my community notice that this official consultation was underway, I held a street-corner meeting or a community catch-up on Sunday and it was so exciting to see how many people came along to this particular community catch-up. There were between 60 and 70 people at my community catch-up on Sunday with a range of issues they wanted to raise and feedback they wanted to provide. One of the clear pieces of feedback was that the users of the facility would like to see the current centre continue to operate while we upgrade and build a new Adelaide Aquatic Centre.

We have heard that loud and clear and that is why it is important that we keep the current facility operating while a new Adelaide Aquatic Centre is built. The centre is visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors, families and users of the facility. I am one of those regulars on a Saturday for swimming lessons with my two children, Audrey and Ned. I am also excited that the current facility will continue to operate while the new centre is built.

There is also a community reference group that people can apply to be part of, which will review the community consultation and feedback. You can apply on the department's website and nominations for that community reference group close on 28 June. As I said, the new Adelaide Aquatic Centre will be an $82.4 million investment to be completed by March 2026. Importantly, there will be no net loss of Parklands as part of this development. Once we have built the new facility, the current facility will be returned to Parklands.

I would also like to give a big shout-out to all the people who attended my community catch-up, our street-corner meeting, on the weekend and in particular the players and parents, spectators and volunteers involved with our water polo community in South Australia and those who use the Adelaide Aquatic Centre.

It was amazing to hear the passion of so many players and parents. I got to go into the centre after my street-corner meeting and watch one of the exhibition matches being played. I want to give a shout-out for your passion. I would like to say 'hats off to you' or when we are talking about the Aquatic Centre maybe we will say 'tops off to you'. Thank you very much.

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