Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have risen many times in this place to recognise the fantastic effort of our volunteers and I do so again today with the International Volunteer Day coming up on 5 December. There are many people who contribute significantly to the southern suburbs of Adelaide and continually show so much care and concern for their local residents. I would like to commend them for it today. In particular, there are a number of awards that local residents have won as a result of their extraordinary effort in volunteering.

I would like to congratulate the Willunga and Districts Lions Club on winning the community organisation award at the Every Generation Onkaparinga awards ceremony. The work they were particularly recognised for was the Willunga Lions Auctions. The Willunga and Districts Lions Club won the award in recognition of their hard work in holding regular auctions and as a result of their club alone raising over $1 million in the past 20 years, which they have distributed to local charities such as the CFS and community health programs. I think we can all say that this is an incredible achievement.

There were also individual winners at the Every Generation award. Barbara Cain, from Morphett Vale, received an award for her volunteering and outstanding contribution to our community—in particular, her work with the ACH Group and the Southern Arthritis Friendship and Support Group. Barbara has also led a singing group for the past 12 years and is a volunteer educator with Arthritis SA. James Greenfield, from Morphett Vale, also received an award for his dedication to teaching older members of our community how to use information technology and assisting hundreds of people over the last 30 years. Both recipients have assisted older members of our community to stay active and to participate in life and should be commended.

This also gives me the opportunity to say a big thank you to members of our community who volunteer in the southern suburbs. I was particularly pleased to recognise many of those contributions in my annual southern suburbs volunteer awards ceremony. I think it is fair to say, as I said at the ceremony, that if government were to fund all the work that volunteers do we would be significantly in deficit. I also recognise that volunteers provide services to the community that cannot be measured in dollars, money or economics. The care and contribution that volunteers make to the work that they do is completely unable to be quantified and I would like to thank them.

Over 100 members of the southern community were nominated for work that went above and beyond what was ordinarily expected of a volunteer. There are a number of people I would like to highlight just to give you the flavour of that. Jess Doyle is a volunteer from the Noarlunga unit of the South Australian State Emergency Service. Jess joined the Noarlunga SES in 2007. She was deployed to Victoria twice, as well as to Kangaroo Island, Queensland and New South Wales, along with many intrastate deployments assisting communities in need. Her commitment to volunteer service is second to none. She never fails to come to the aid of the community when required. Keith Lloyd has been a member of the Country Fire Service in Milang for 45 years and achieved a life membership in 2008. He has done volunteering for a range of other organisations. These include the Riverland Musical Society, the Willunga High School and the Friends of the Paddle-Steamer Industry. He became a life member of Milang and District Historical Society in 2013—and the list of organisations go on.

It is also important to recognise our international volunteers. These are volunteers who use their skills and time to volunteer in developing countries. There are a range of people I would like to acknowledge, including Elmina Joldic, Christine Gates, Jarad Wilkinson, Chelsea Berner, Tierney Sheridan, Kate Loveday, James Anthony, Diane Anthony and Belinda Lacy. These volunteers have committed time away from their homes and their families and friends to improve the lives of many in developing countries overseas, where their skills and time have been much appreciated.

This is a small snapshot of what is happening in the southern suburbs in terms of volunteering. I would like to commend all those volunteers. They do not expect much from others. Thank you. You make people's lives better.