Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure today to acknowledge this motion, moved by the member for Gippsland, and the outstanding contribution made to the health and safety of beach goers of Australia by volunteer and professional surf lifesavers. As the member for Gippsland has noted, there are more than 150,000 members in 310 clubs across Australia, making it the largest volunteer movement of its kind in the country. It goes without saying that the image of the bronzed surf lifesavers patrolling hundreds of beaches around our coastline is one of our iconic symbols of Australian lifestyle.

However, the surf lifesaving movement is worth much more than that. As the official website of Surf Life Saving Australia states:

When Australians decided to embrace the ocean as a site of active recreation in the early part of the 20th century, our love of the beach emerged. The need for a lifesaving movement—to protect and save lives—grew, and from that day onwards, Surf Life Saving became part of the fabric of our country.

Australia's first volunteer surf lifesaving clubs appeared on Sydney beaches in 1907, after laws banning bathing in daylight hours were gradually repealed; although, as the member for Wentworth said, clubs were forming up earlier than that in the period from 1904 to 1906.

As the beach culture began to develop, beachgoers entered into the surf, rapidly escalating the numbers, but many of those who took to the surf could not swim. Sadly, there were drownings, and consequently rescue attempts escalated. By the summer of 1906-07 the population of Sydney was obsessed with the question of safety in the surf. It was in this environment that surf lifesaving clubs emerged, their regular patrols a welcome relief to local authorities and nervous bathers alike. On 18 October 1907, representatives of these Sydney clubs, with members from other interested groups, met to form the Surf Bathing Association of New South Wales, the organisation now known as Surf Life Saving Australia.

In my home state of Queensland, the 'sunshine state', home of some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, the surf lifesaving movement began in 1908 when an old line and belt was brought to Tweed Heads by Sydney dentist Harold Bennett for the purpose of forming a lifesaving club. Not long after that, the first qualified surf lifesavers practised at Greenmount Beach, a little to the north. On 21 February 1909, the first recorded rescue using a lifesaving reel was performed in the surf off Greenmount. Lifesavers rescued four young women and a young man who had been swept out in a rip. Surf Life Saving Queensland was formally established in 1930 and is now the governing body for surf lifesaving in that state.

Some of the major milestones within surf lifesaving in Queensland include the introduction of red-and-yellow flags in 1935, the adoption of expired air resuscitation—otherwise known as mouth-to-mouth—in 1960 and the beginning of the Westpac helicopter in 1976. Perhaps one of the more momentous occasions in the association's history was in 1980, when all surf lifesaving clubs welcomed female members. A century of achievements within the surf lifesaving movement of Australia was celebrated in 2007 with the national Year of the Surf Lifesaver.

Membership of Surf Life Saving Queensland during the 2010-11 season was a very creditable 33,364 people, 11,261 of whom were nippers. Rescues during that season totalled 3,610, including 10 resuscitations, six defibrillation cases and 262 people receiving oxygen treatment. Incredibly, Surf Life Saving Queensland carried out 289,391 preventative actions in the 2010-11 season.

While the primary job of saving lives is the major focus of Surf Life Saving Queensland, the organisation concentrates heavily on community awareness programs, which are aimed at educating all members of the community. Many of these programs have been developed to target high-risk groups, including 18- to 25-year-old males, the rural population, international tourists, domestic tourists and especially those with no English skills.

These programs are set to be enhanced with an announcement earlier this year that a coalition government will commit an additional $10 million to assist surf-lifesaving clubs across Australia purchase much needed equipment and will extend the beach drowning black spot reduction program. In my electorate of Hinkler there are three surf clubs, including the Bundaberg Surf-Lifesaving Club formed in 1921, the Elliot Heads Surf-Lifesaving Club formed in 1965 and the Harvey Bay Surf-Lifesaving Club, which was originally formed in the 50s and relaunched in 1986. In the nearby electorate of Flynn patrolled, dare I say, by my colleague Ken O'Dowd, very close to Bundaberg we have a fourth club, Moore Park Surf-Lifesaving Club, formed in 1954. Although I was never a member of a surf-life-saving club, my father was a member of the old Royal Life-saving Association back in the 20s and was awarded his bronze medallion. My wife was a member of the Neptune club, an all female club at Tallebudgera on the Gold Coast, years before women were accepted into surf-life-saving. Some of the girls did their own thing. My daughter Gay was a member of the Elliot Head Surf Club, while my sons Gavin and Peter were members of Bundaberg club. Peter also was a contestant in national titles for the rubber ducky.

As with most surf-lifesaving clubs in Australia, the beginnings of these clubs were humble and clubhouses consisted of one-room weatherboard sheds or, in the case of the Moore Park Beach club for many years, just a tent. Rusty shark towers and wind-up sirens completed the inventory of equipment and training and rescues were carried out from fishing boats. I might add that the Moore Park Club, sadly, of recent times lost part of its club to beach erosion and part of the building became uninhabitable. Now each club can boast a much wider range of equipment, including rescue boards and tubes, inflatable rescue boats—as I said, the rubber duckies—spinal boards, extrication collars, Australian-standard flags and symbols, first-aid kits, bag valve mask oxygen resuscitators, and automated external defibrillators as well as hand-held radios. The movement has come a long way.

I am delighted to report that the Harvey Bay Club, which had a chequered career in earlier times, is now in expansionary mode and I understand going into new additions. Councillor Darren Everard, a new councillor of the Fraser Coast Regional Council, has been keeping me abreast of these developments. I am a patron of the Bundaberg Surf Club, the oldest club in my electorate. It is steeped in history and has hosted state championships at its Nielsen Park beach site in 1939 and 1938 and the championships returned to Bundaberg in 1951 and 1960. During the 1938 championships the home club won its first state march-past championship. The win must have laid the foundation because between 1959 and 1989 the Bundaberg Surf Club won 17 march-pasts at the national titles and seven silver medals, so you can see that they pretty well dominated it.

In the remaining minutes I would like acknowledge a great sportsman, Noel Bullpitt. Noel and Bundaberg surf-lifesaving are synonymous. He was president of the club for the 41 years and joined it in 1934. Noel will turn 100 in November and that will mark 78 years membership of the club, which we understand is an Australian record. He was also one of the few life governors of Surf Life Saving Australia. (Time expired)

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