Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a real honour and privilege to speak about my constituents in my constituency statement. As it is the last sitting day for 2021, I want to give a big shout-out to the incredible community organisations in my electorate, my great electorate of Reid. Whether it be the countless sporting groups, the church charities, the school P&Cs, the environmental groups, Reid is truly blessed to have some of the most amazing community organisations, and we know those organisations are only being made great by incredible people, the volunteers who give up their time to make a positive impact on our local community.

I was pleased to see that 31 organisations in Reid were the recipients of 2021 volunteer grants. I won't name all of the organisations, but it was great to see amongst the recipients the hardworking volunteers at 1st Yaralla Sea Scouts; the Australian Breastfeeding Association, Strathfield group; the little red hat association; the Breakfast Point Men's Shed; Briars at Greenlees; the City of Canada Bay Men's Shed; Concord High School P? St Merkorious church; the Drummoyne scouts; and the Chinese Australian Services Society. They all do incredible work, and the volunteers work so hard. They will all be supported with grants of up to $5,000.

The Morrison government is also delivering vital infrastructure to support local community organisations in Reid to keep their power bills low and lower emissions through the Powering Communities Program. It has been brilliant to see solar panels put on the roofs of our local community organisations over the past month. To give you just one example, St Paul's Anglican church in Burwood, a great local church run by Father Collins and his amazing team of volunteers, has just had solar panels installed on the community hall roof. Without the support of Powering Communities this would not have been able to be done. The volunteer team at St Paul's church have been working hard throughout the pandemic through their parish pantry, supporting literally thousands of people in need of support. These solar panels will help keep their power bills low but also, importantly, help to reduce emissions.

Sporting groups are also being supported in my local community through the Stronger Communities Program, which is delivering vital small capital projects to support them. Burwood Football Club has just installed their water station at Blair Park, and this will ensure there is less need for plastic bottles to be used during the team's games. Expressions of interest are open now for round 7 of the Stronger Communities Program, which will close tomorrow. I encourage organisations in Reid who are yet to put in an expression of interest to do so.

Since 2019 I have worked hard, working with our amazing community groups, and I am looking forward to getting out more, now that the lockdowns have ended, and seeing people face to face. Reid is doing great work.