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

Last week, like many people in this place, I got a chance to get out and about in my electorate and to visit many of the wonderful community groups doing great things in local communities. In particular I was pleased to be able to visit some of the organisations that have received funding under some recent grant rounds. One of those was the Clarendon Vale Neighbourhood Centre, which received a grant for $7,800 to assist the centre in purchasing solar panels for its roof. It was particularly pleasing to see and hear the impact that these solar panels will have on the centre's resources. In particular, the savings that they make on their energy bills will allow them to provide more support to their local community. The Clarendon Vale Neighbourhood Centre is essentially social development in action. It's a wonderful place to go and visit. There are always lots of community members there. They have a dinner there regularly—I think it's on a Thursday—and over 80 people have been turning up from the local community to go to this neighbourhood house for these wonderful meals. Local community members come and volunteer in this centre all the time. So it was wonderful to see them receiving this grant funding.

Another one was one of my councils, the Kingborough Council, who received $20,000 through the Communities Environment Program. That was essentially to work on a major restoration project around the salt marshes on Browns River. This an area that you wouldn't know was there unless you're a regular local walking around the river as it meets the beach. It's fabulous to see what the vision for this area is. It is eventually for council to put boardwalks in and to connect it up to some of the other features in the Kingston area that council has been working on.

I was also privileged to visit the Dover District School, which received some money through the schools funding program. They got $20,000. The principal there, Mr Eastland—known as Mr E to the students—gave me a tour of the school and showed me the science lab where this money is supposed to be spent. It is desperate for an upgrade. Here we have students in a district school over an hour south of Hobart without a lot of resources, who really need this in their local school. It was wonderful to be able to talk to the principal and some of the students and teachers about the needs of that local school.

One of the other things that I really enjoyed was being with Senator Catryna Bilyk and our upper house candidate for the seat of Huon, Bastian Seidel. People might remember Bastian's name. He used to be head of the GP college. He is standing for Labor in a local upper house election to be held on 2 May. One of the fun things we did was go to one of the local Catholic schools in the Huon electorate with Catryna Bilyk and Bastian to see them receive a grant for $11,000, to see the plans for the cricket nets and to talk particularly to the young girls at the school who are taking up cricket. I said to them that this year for the first time, when I've been doing school assemblies, I have seen young women in grade 6 aspire to be a full-time cricketer. After 12 years in this place that is the first time that I have seen young girls actually aspire to be a full-time cricketer in Australia and play for Australia. I was so proud to be able to fund these cricket nets which I know these young women are going to be able to enjoy in my local community.

As we've heard a lot in this place, there is a huge demand for facilities for females as females take up what are traditional male sports—AFL, rugby, a whole range of things. But of course we've seen that many community organisations haven't been able to access their fair share of those because of some of the rorting that went on under the current government in the last grants rounds. But I was very pleased to be able to tell my community that they have my support and Labor's support to be able to invest in local facilities in their local communities. I was particularly pleased to be able to talk to these girls about their aspirations and for these cricket nets to be opened up, not just at the school but for the whole local community. So it was wonderful to be able to do that.

Whilst I have a few minutes I do want to thank the local community members who have been part of this grants round process. They've put a lot of time and energy into shortlisting the grants rounds, going through all the applications and making recommendations for funding. I particularly want to thank Anne Harrison, Michael Higgins, Charles Rich and Peter Shelley for their assistance in the Stronger Communities Program and the Communities Environment Program. I want to thank Perpetua Turner, Juliana Shea and Nigel Jones for the schools program.