Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the joys of representing the seaside electorate of Kingsford Smith is the wonderful surfing culture that we have in our community. Each year, members of our community gather together to celebrate that wonderful surfing culture with the Maroubra Beach Breaks Carnival and to induct a new round of legends into the Australian Surfing Walk of Fame, which exists at Maroubra Beach.

The Surfing Walk of Fame was initiated in 2006 and recognises and celebrates the outstanding achievement of Australia's leading surfers and surf lifesavers. In their honour, a bronze plaque is laid into the promenade at the beach and a large crowd gathers for the unveiling of the plaques each year. This year's inductees were a special group of four people, including ironwoman Candice Warner; Olympian and surf lifesaving champion, Graham 'Johno' Johnson; pro surfer, Tony White; and surfing champion and local mentor, Kevin 'Davo' Davidson.

Candice Warner first competed professionally at the age of 14 in the Ironwoman Series. At 16, she was the New South Wales state ironwoman champion, and in January 2008 Candice qualified for a spot in the 2008 Nutri-Grain Ironwoman Series. She won 19 Surf Life Saving Australia medals—a worthy inductee. Graham Johnson represented Australia in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in the K4 1,000, was president of Australian Canoeing from 1977 to 1984 and is a life member of Australian Canoeing. He's also a life member of the Maroubra Surf Life Saving Club and won a national surf life saving title. Former professional surfer Tony White was a pioneer at pro surfing. He was a champion of the Gunston 500 in South Africa in 1977 and the Stubbies Surf Classic and Coca-Cola Surfabouts from 1977 to 1980. Davo, Kevin Davidson, is a local legend in Maroubra. He was champion of the Coca-Cola Surfabout in 1978 and a mentor to many young local surfers.

The crowd was treated to a cracking day of beautiful weather and a very large swell. They saw a surfing competition, a skateboard competition, sand sculptors and local craft stores with face painting. The young guns also kept people entertained with the 2017 grommet state surf titles, throwing up some spectacular surfing amid powerful waves. Jai Glinderman and Cedar Leigh-Jones claimed the titles, taking out the under-14 divisions respectively.

I congratulate all of those who were inducted into the Australian Surfing Walk of Fame recently at Maroubra. I thank them for their service to our nation, our community and surfing, and congratulations to Randwick council on running another spectacular event.