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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-09-28 Daily Xml
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Stretton Centre

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (15:32): Recently, I went with the member for Light, Mr Tony Piccolo, as his guest, for a tour of the Stretton Centre, which is an organisation that explores and enables job creation for local people across Adelaide's northern suburbs. Stretton was founded by the City of Playford, the University of Adelaide and Renewal SA at their Munno Para headquarters in 2015, with over $11 million from the Australian government's Suburban Jobs Program and the Playford Alive Initiatives Fund.

Stretton's core objective of facilitating local jobs for local people contributes significantly to improving community wellbeing, developing new industry and generating employment opportunities for those in the north. The closure of Holden presents new challenges for the northern suburbs, in the face of a rapidly changing economy and environment. The northern region is also one of the most rapidly growing areas in SA, giving rise to the importance of the Stretton Centre.

The Playford library service at Stretton has become an integral and strategic part of how Stretton engages with the community. Stretton and the library staff work collaboratively and proactively to engage the community in literacy, STEM and the digital economy. Facilities include free wi-fi, digital manufacturing, visual reality goggles, board games and curated games consoles.

In particular, Stretton's proximity to the hugely successful Playford Alive Town Park and Mark Oliphant College has contributed to Stretton being frequented by a large number of local children. Today, the library at Stretton has welcomed over 126,000 customers. In addition, approximately 3,400 people have used Stretton's meeting room spaces on the first floor for education, research, business training, community engagement and corporate functions.

Cabinet met at Stretton in November 2015 and 90 people attended a children's university event this year during the school holidays. Stretton also provides co-working accommodation for businesses and key stakeholders, such as Housing SA and Business SA. Creative stationery company Sail and Swan, one of eight small businesses operating from Stretton, employed its first staff member on 26 September.

TAFE SA training events offered at the Stretton Centre include Red Cross training, tender writing workshops, a guide to starting your own business workshop, and health and safety representative training. It is noteworthy that the accommodation at the Stretton Centre is also 'meaningfully green'. The 'meaningfully green' building design, as it is described on the website, means that the centre uses less water, less power, smart design to help with heating and cooling, and materials that are cost effective and have low environmental impact.

The University of Adelaide, one of Stretton's founding partners, continues to have a strategic research relationship with Stretton, and Flinders University plans to use Stretton's workspaces to support the research and reporting elements of the Minister for Social Housing's $50,000 Stretton Fellowship in 2016-17. Economic development is supported at Stretton with the South Australian Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (SAYES), Elizabeth Community Bank (Bendigo) and web marketing company Clientology, a Stretton co-worker, partnered to deliver the new Northern Adelaide Entrepreneur Scholarship.

Stretton has promoted and participated in local and very successful Meet the Buyer events. Stretton helps local companies become aware of and apply to federal and state government funding initiatives such as the $10 million Small Business Development Fund under the Northern Economic Plan. To date, Stretton has assisted five companies to successfully apply to the fund, creating 21 new jobs.

In conjunction with the City of Playford, Stretton is supporting Investment Attraction South Australia to facilitate new investment in the northern region. The state government has committed to delivering a node of the Innovative Manufacturing CRC from Stretton. The Department of State Development is supporting the delivery of the Northern Adelaide Jobs portal in 2016-17 with approximately $20,000 in funding support.

The state government's $4.7 million Adelaide Gig City investment will bring gigabit per second broadband speeds to Stretton, facilitating their ability to compete on a global scale. It is with confidence that I can say a lot is being achieved within the Stretton Centre, and I am optimistic about the potential of more opportunities being created north of the city, with the Stretton Centre at the support helm.

Stretton was awarded the prestigious Jack McConnell Award for Public Architecture in 2016. The jury said that Stretton was 'an architecturally accomplished focal point for the wider northern suburbs community'. Stretton is now in the running for the National Architecture Awards which will be announced in November 2016. Again, I thank the member for Light, Mr Tony Piccolo, for arranging the tour. I also thank Mr Dermott Cussen for the tour and wish him well with his plans for the future of Stretton.

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