Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This past week has been a very big week in my electorate. Of course 11 November, yesterday, marked the 40th anniversary of the sacking of the Whitlam government, and I got the opportunity to be reminded of the dramatic momentum of that tumultuous period when I attended the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Broadmeadows Sporting Club last Sunday afternoon. Sunset Boulevard Jacana is the site of the Broadmeadows Sporting Club. Set in the Jacana Valley and surrounded by sprawling wetlands, Broadmeadows Sporting Club is an iconic presence in our local community. The club is a non-profit organisation. It runs sporting and social events and sponsors local community groups, and its longstanding service and committee have seen the club successfully service the Jacana-Broadmeadows area and the surrounding suburbs for the last four decades. It also enjoys a very special footnote in Australian political history, for it was here on 10 November 1975 that the then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, came to lay the foundation stone for the club. This event in Broadmeadows was to be the last official function conducted by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. He would later of course return to Canberra where, on 11 November 1975, he would be sacked by Governor-General John Kerr. This memorable piece of history has forever linked the club with Prime Minister Whitlam and the 1975 constitutional crisis of the dismissal.

The club's place in history is matched of course only by its longstanding service to the community in an area that has traditionally suffered from a lack of social infrastructure and with the reputation as a rough and disadvantaged part of Melbourne's north. By providing the community hub for the neighbourhood, the sporting club has brought enjoyment, social connection, recreation and community spirit to the outer urban working-class suburbs in the north-western region of Melbourne. It has supported local sports activities for decades and it donates to local sporting clubs, including the Jacana Football Club and the Broadmeadows Sub-District Cricket Club. It sponsors many community events, such as the Hume City Council Carols by Candlelight and Auskick, and most recently the club sponsored an initiative to research the connection between sport participation and academic achievement in our local Broadmeadows schools. The club estimates that it has donated in excess of $1 million to local community groups and events in the past years. It was therefore very fitting that the foundation stone of the club was placed by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who was known as a champion of the working class and of migrant Australia. I want to quote club vice-president, Len Barry, who says, 'The club's board of directors has always had the view that we should return to the community as much as is possible.'

I want to congratulate Len Barry and his committee and I want to congratulate everyone who serves at the Broadmeadows Sporting Club.