Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday, I was at the local football game, Gawler Central versus Willaston. It was a great game. I was there with the state member for Light, Mr Tony Piccolo, and Premier Mike Rann. The Premier was good enough to toss the coin for the A-grade match and for a very competitive netball game as well. It is a bit of a tradition in Gawler, in my home town, Kapunda, and in the Barossa to have the footy and netball together on one site, and it is a great day for all involved. You get a lot of spectators, a lot of families and a lot of people who have previously played taking an interest in the matches and taking an interest in the league.

As I stayed to watch the game, after the formalities had finished, I talked to a number of club officials and a number of members of both clubs. They brought up the issue of the conduct of the Town of Gawler, which has recently decided to enforce a number of their leases. It is a great cause for consternation amongst the local community and also amongst the club officials. Basically, what has happened is that the Town of Gawler has sent out 19 letters following an internal audit of the council’s community lease properties, acting to enforce the leases in this financial year, 2008-09. Some of the fees are quite high. Some of the lease fees are a massive increase on the fees that the clubs had been paying.

Karbeethan Sporting Association got a letter basically outlining a cost of $130,000. Willaston Football Club has been charged $81,000, Gawler Central Football Club $64,000, and South Gawler Football Club $58,591—with Gawler Bowling Club, the Gawler BMX Club, the scout group and the Gawler Club all being charged lesser amounts of between about $1,200 and $3,000. Obviously, these are enormous amounts of money for these sporting clubs to have to pay. In particular, if you look at the Karbeethan sporting club, Heather Jackson said:

We had no idea —they (council) must not want us to play sport in Gawler …

There are many clubs that simply face closure if these leases are enforced. It is a great concern also to the South Gawler Football Club. Jim Callander, who I know well, who is a great local official and a very dedicated member of the South Gawler footy club, said:

“If they (council) pursue it they are going to kill the South Gawler Sporting Club —they are seeking to extract a whole heap of money that is simply not there.

“We would either have to shut the doors or move completely out of the Gawler area.”

Given that this club has been going in Gawler for 120 years, that would be a great tragedy indeed.

Those are all quotes out of the Bunyip newspaper, our local town newspaper, a very good newspaper, which I think indicate the level of consternation around this move by the council. There was a further article only in today’s Bunyip which talks similarly about how 40 concerned club representatives met on Friday night. The Karbeethan Sporting Association, which represents the Gawler Eagles, the Gawler and Districts Softball Association, the Gawler Hockey Club, the Gawler Rangers Baseball Club and the Riverside Cricket Club, was there. South Gawler, Gawler Central and Willaston football clubs and the BMX club were all there. They are all concerned about the enforcement of these leases.

I think the Town of Gawler should rethink these leases, enter into productive and fruitful negotiations with the sporting clubs and basically do it in a much more friendly manner. I am concerned that this decision by the council was made in secret and that once it was made a letter simply landed in the sporting clubs’ postal boxes. I think that is not the way you should go about things when you are dealing with such a worrying issue. These price rises are far too large for any club to withstand, much less withstand with very short notice, so I call on the Town of Gawler to reconsider their decision.