Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Cowan, like most electorates, there are many seniors clubs. They do great work and are highly motivated to support the activities of older Australians, and they are always run by volunteers. Today I will talk about the Wanneroo Senior Citizens Club in the north of the electorate of Cowan. It is a very active and vibrant club with 450 members, which is simply outstanding and makes it the biggest club within Cowan. It is located at the Wanneroo Community Centre within the town site just above the library, so it is very well located and the support of the city of Wanneroo is notable.

The club is a great example of how, if you give the people what they need or what they want, success will follow, and having 450 members really does say something about the club. They have an extremely wide range of activities, including dancing, craft, table tennis, indoor bowls, mahjong, bingo, Tai Chi, pool, painting, whist and cards, and a hairdresser attends the club on two days a week. There is a lot of appeal amongst all those activities. I particularly make mention of the president, Marcia Dinnie, who for many years has been doing great work in running and promoting the club; John Havlin, her vice-president; Helen Kearton, the secretary; Jean Squibb, the treasurer; and David Morgan, who is a committee member and served for a number of years in a senior position on the committee.

The Wanneroo Senior Citizens Club recently asked for my support to relocate the post office in the town site to the newly redeveloped shopping centre. The next day I gave them a petition and within another 24 hours they gave it back to me with about 160 signatures on it, and apparently there are more signatures just waiting for me to pick up when I get back to Perth. Therefore, they are highly motivated, they care about the local community, they care about their members and they are an outstanding club. I commend their work and the efforts of the committee and the president, Marcia Dinnie, to the parliament.

See this speech in context