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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-22 Daily Xml
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Volunteers

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (14:43): My question is to the minister—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I can't hear—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! There is a member on her feet. The Hon. Dr Centofanti has the call.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding volunteers. Can the minister please update the council on the Marshall Liberal government's recognition of volunteer service to the community through National Volunteer Week and volunteer thank you events?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:44): I thank the honourable member for her question. As she has identified, there has been a number of celebrations to recognise our amazing volunteers across South Australia over the last several weeks, culminating with the volunteer event that we held on the Queen's Birthday holiday at Her Majesty's Theatre quite recently, where we were able to recognise the statewide volunteer awards for people who have made outstanding contributions to their community.

We were very honoured to have the presence of His Excellency the Hon. Hieu Van Le, Governor of South Australia, who participated in the awards presentations, as well as the Premier, Steven Marshall. I also acknowledge that some of my parliamentary colleagues attended, including the member for Hurtle Vale and the member for Florey. There may have been some members of the Legislative Council. Nobody is jumping up, so I apologise if they were there and I wasn't able to acknowledge them.

We do, of course, have a number of other ways to recognise people, including through volunteer certificates. The statewide awards, however, are worth acknowledging publicly in this place. The first award, the Premier's Award for Corporate Social Responsibility, which recognises the invaluable contribution of a South Australian business to the community through its support of volunteering, went to Sullivan Consulting, which has been involved in supporting a number of community organisations, through donating 100 hours to community service during work hours, participating in fundraising events, providing practical support, such as mock interview scenarios and recruitment advice, at various colleges across South Australia, and donating funds themselves and in-kind services to a number of non-government organisations.

The Joy Noble Medal, which is the highest distinction for an individual volunteer, was awarded this year to Mrs Betty Khor, who may be known to a number of people, having been an advocate, activist and champion of nurses, women's rights and human rights for over 40 years. In fact, I got to know Betty through her role as the President of the National Council of Women some years ago. She has also been engaged in the Dernancourt community garden, has been an advocate through the Asian Women's Consultative Council of SA and has had a number of roles supporting women throughout South Australia.

The Andamooka Community Project Award recognises innovative community projects, and that was awarded in 2021 to Habitat for Humanity, who were involved in a particular bushfire recovery program. Habitat are quite well known in assisting low income families to get into home ownership, but they have also worked through bushfire and recovery programs, going back to the Sampson Flat and Pinery bushfires. They have had a recovery team on the ground since February 2020 to salvage, rebuild and assist home owners to rebuild their properties, as well as working with removing fence wire and posts, pruning and peeling branches, clearing debris and replanting vegetation. They worked as well with Volunteering SA, BlazeAid, the Onkaparinga Rotary Club and the Lobethal Recovery Centre.

The final award that was awarded was the Excellence in Volunteer Management Award, which went to Ms Victoria Gautier, who works for the Carers and Disability Link carer support program. She supports mentors and volunteer coordinators with the Adelaide Hills volunteer managers network and has run a very innovative program to assist people through that program.

I also had the great pleasure recently to attend a recognition event on behalf of Educators SA volunteers, who are educators who support other educators through their program. Collectively, those teachers have contributed decades, or probably several hundred years of service, many thousands of hours in assisting each other to upskill through languages, mathematics and a range of other fields.

In particular, one volunteer who was recognised was a maths teacher of some standing who, as a 91 year old, has contributed a huge amount of time to assisting people with upskilling in mathematics: Mr Keith Hamann OAM. He was born in 1930 and has been involved in not just teaching secondary maths education at a range of high schools but has been involved in the MASA school maths competition, which is now known as the Hamann School Mathematics Competition, which is now in its 60th year. He has written papers, started Saturday morning problem-solving workshops and assisted a number of individual students, including South Australia's well-known Terry Tao.

We congratulate all of those individuals who have been supporting each other through these programs and recognise their contribution.

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