Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a privilege to go down to Woodbridge, in the channel in my electorate, in the last week or so to announce funding for two wonderful projects that have a lot of community support. I particularly want to talk about Woodbridge Hall, which is owned by the Kingborough Council and managed by the Woodbridge Hall Management Committee. This hall has been a central part of the Woodbridge community since its construction in 1890. It's a beautiful, old timber building, and there are a number of regular markets and users of the hall. They have Perry's Pictures on a monthly basis and they have weekly yoga sessions using this old hall in the town of Woodbridge.

Currently, the kitchen would have difficulty meeting basic food standards. The current kitchen equipment, benches and cupboards are outdated and completely inefficient. This grant of $10,672 will go towards a total project of $21,343 to upgrade that kitchen area so that locals can get better utilisation of this hall. This will pay for things like dishwashers, microwaves, hotplates and other things. It is wonderful that that was able to be funded.

The other project is one at a local school, Woodbridge School. It's a multiuse park. It is going to have mountain bike tracks, outdoor classrooms, a story space, seating and landscape for recreational use and landscaped native gardens. It was designed by one of the students, which is wonderful. They did a drawing and talked to the principal, who then went off to the education department to get authority to do this quite unique project.

The state government has put some funding in. We got them $7,500 from the Stronger Communities Program for a $15,000 total project. It will be used by the school students and staff during classes and break times. It will provide much needed areas for cross-generational recreation in the Woodbridge community. It will also provide an outdoor community hub and a space to run other community initiatives. The school association is also raising money through annual fairs and raffles to provide some additional financial support for this hub.

The project has a lot of support from the local community, including the Woodbridge Community Association; the West Winds Community Centre; Woodbridge Village Store; Peppermint Bay, which is a restaurant nearby; and the Woodbridge Post Office. Volunteers will provide labour and services in the construction and development of the park. It's a great local community project. It's wonderful to be in a position to be able to support these two local community projects in Woodbridge. It's a very vibrant community and it was wonderful to go down to visit and talk to locals about the benefits to their community.