Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In academic circles and among business thinkers around the world at the moment, there's a real focus on how to develop a commercially viable business that delivers social good rather than a one-on-one transaction that does what it does and delivers a social good to the broader community. You can see it through exploration of social enterprise and impact investing, and even great academics like Michael Porter will say to you that something has to be commercially viable if it's going to scale. If you want something that will solve social good, you need to make it commercially viable in order for it to scale. Every time I hear that—and I am quite a fan of Michael Porter and a whole range of others; and I read a lot of academic research because it's really interesting—I think, yeah, except for surf life saving, Country Women's Association, amateur sport and Scouts. There are many others: these organisations that form as a tiny little bud, scale around the world and 100 years or more later they're still flourishing with more loyalty and commitment than you find in any commercial business and living longer than most commercial companies.

Something very special happens when a good idea takes root in a community, and they pick it up as volunteers, and Scouts and Guides are no doubt that. Formed, as it was, by Lord Baden-Powell in 1907, was the world scouting movement. Parramatta picked it up in 1908. One year later the Parramatta Scout Group was established, one of the first in Australia—of course, because we're Parramatta; we do that—and it is still thriving. In fact now we have 12 Scout groups in the electorate of Parramatta, and I am going to name them—there are 1,000 members at least. They are the 1st/2nd Second Merrylands (St Anne's) Scout Group; the 1st/2nd Second Merrylands (St Anne's) Rover Crew; the 3rd Merrylands Scout Group; the 1st Westmead Scout Group; the 1st Westmead Rover Crew; the 1st Granville Scout Group; and the 1st Rydalmere Scout Group, which is reopening because the interest in scouting is growing again, largely because of COVID, and looking for outdoor activities and really safe places for children to be, and the Scouts organisation have worked so hard to make sure they're COVID-safe. You can absolutely guarantee that they will follow the rules that they set down, and you know your child will actually be doing the things they say they are going to do. Children are returning to scouts.

These are the ones reopening. We have the 1st Parramatta Scout Group—that is, the really old one—the 1st Toongabbie Scout Group, the 1st Carlingford Scout Group, the Western Sydney Buddha's Light International Association Scout Group and the Kings Langley Rover Scout Unit Westmead, which is reopening for joeys and cubs right now, again, because the interest in scouting is growing.

What a great bunch of people they are. I have spent quite a bit of time with my local scouts, various groups of them. I've been there for all sorts of events and they are an amazing bunch of people. Five hundred scouts attend the Dawn Service in Parramatta every year—500 of them! We have three or four RSLs, so we have a few dawn services in Parramatta; I can't get to them all. They tend to stagger them, so I can rush from one to the other in many cases. That 500 scouts attend in Parramatta alone really is quite amazing.

Looking back at the history of volunteers with Scouts, we have had volunteers like Annette Douglas, who has been a cub scout leader with Parramatta Scout Group since 1990 and an honorary leader since 2017. She's over 80 now and she is still there contributing actively and supporting young people in our community; what an extraordinary contribution she has made. This year Annette received an OAM in the Australia Day 2020 honours for her contribution to youth and scouts—incredibly deserving. Sandy Knox has been with Ermington Scouts since 2004. She has served as a leader with joeys, cubs and venturers and has been instrumental in putting on major local events like the Parramatta district fun day and the annual New South Wales cuborees. Leonie Plumber has been part of Carlingford Scouts since 1992. She trained hundreds of joeys in this time while working with children in her own scout group.

Every year I get invited to the Cumberland Gang Show, which is over 50 years old. In the last 16 years, I've been to it 14 times. It is an extraordinary organisation with an extraordinary bunch who keep that institution alive year after year after year. Every time someone tells me you if it's not commercially viable, it can't scale, think Scouts, an organisation of 100 years.

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