Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to report to the House on another successful partnership that I have been able to deliver in conjunction with Blacktown City Council and one that has attracted widespread support around the community for the benefits it will bring, and that is that Blacktown City Council has become the first council in New South Wales that will be placing a defibrillator in every sporting venue across the council's area.

This is an enormous achievement. Blacktown City Council is the largest local government area in New South Wales. In my time as a councillor and deputy mayor on the council, we really promoted the area as being a sporting city. If you go around on any weekend, especially in Blacktown, you can see that all of the sporting grounds are full and they are very widely utilised, which is why this plan is so important. One hundred and one defibrillators will be rolled out across the council's area, and every sporting venue will have the same brand and type of unit. This is a $225,000 project which is underwritten by Blacktown City Council. I was pleased to be able to sponsor a $20,000 contribution through the Stronger Communities Program. I want to acknowledge that the partnership extended beyond the council and me to a number of other institutions, including the Blacktown district soccer football club, Rugby League Penrith, Rugby League Parramatta, AFL and Cricket NSW.

This will certainly be an initiative that will have very significant benefits for our local community. We are going to have club officials trained to properly use the defibrillators. The huge benefit of this will be that at any sporting fixture there will be a large group of people who will be able to grab a defibrillator off the wall and use it with confidence.

The Heart Foundation of New South Wales has heartily welcomed this as well, saying that it congratulates Blacktown Council in its comprehensive approach to providing every sports facility in its local area with automated external defibrillators. It said that time is crucial in sudden cardiac arrest situations—every minute that passes reduces the rate of survival by 10 per cent.

This will be of enormous benefit to some 30,000 athletes who use our sporting grounds, especially elite young athletes. Many people may not realise that it is elite young athletes who are most vulnerable to cardiac arrests.

I was very pleased on Friday to be able to meet with members of a number of the sporting groups who will benefit from this, including Blacktown City & District Cricket Association President Stuart McKinder, who said, 'We have had two people—older blokes—die on the fields within Blacktown over the past 20 years that I know of, and who knows? It might have turned out differently if there was a defibrillator. If it saves one life, then it pays for itself.' So I am very pleased to have been able to sponsor this. As I said, these council-owned fields accommodate 120 sporting clubs across 20 sports codes. This will have a very real benefit for the people of Greenway.