Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday night I attended two outstanding surf club presentations in the electorate of Shortland: the Hunter Surf Life Saving club branch is a fantastic, very active branch, and it has a very good history of being one of the premium branches within the state. It has over the last season had 24 after-hours rescue responses, 68 ambulance calls, 391 rescues, 19,165 preventative actions, 59 first aids and 687,450 beach attendants, with 71,500 volunteer patrol hours—quite fantastic.

Swansea Belmont Surf Life Saving Club is a club with 697 members, with 287 juniors. It has 10 trainers and five assessors. It completed seven rescues, 123 preventative actions and 12 first aids, closed the beach five times and performed 4,654 patrol hours and volunteering worth $93,080 to Lake Macquarie City Council. It also organised a cracker ironman and hosted the Lake Macquarie Games.

Belmont Swansea has been a fantastic club. Over the years it has hosted both state and national titles. It has a very experienced group at its club. They are very dedicated people who have been involved with their club for a very long time. I thank the MC, Chad Griffith, my next-door neighbour, who did a fantastic job on the night.

Caves Beach Surf Life Saving Club has 626 members, 220 juniors and a very impressive 27 cadets, 16 trainers and seven assessors. It completed 22 rescues, 2,794 preventative actions and 49 first aids, closed the beaches 20 times over the season and performed 5,987 patrol hours, worth a massive $120,000 to Lake Macquarie City Council. It is a very strong, united club, a family club. There are up to three generations of members at that club from the same family. They perform well on the beach and perform very well as far as safety is concerned. It organises the ocean-beach swim and participates in many events throughout the Hunter region.

Congratulations to these outstanding surf clubs.