Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Hunter Boyle Children's Swim Program. This fantastic initiative, in partnership with Kidsafe, was started by Ash Napolitano and Matt Boyle in 2021. Sadly, like a number of great community initiatives, this was born from tragedy. In 2020, two-year-old Hunter Boyle drowned in a dam on a farm where he loved visiting his grandfather. It was tragic for the community and many rallied around the family at the time.

In the depths of their despair, Hunter's parents, Ash and Matt, were driven to make a difference for others. Their dream was to establish a program that would provide children in need, within the Goulburn Valley region, with critical swimming lessons and water safety education for a minimum of 12 months. They also encourage and assist people to become qualified swim teachers.

I participated in the five-kilometre event in the Shepparton Running Festival a couple of weeks ago. It was a great thrill that Ash and Matt were the charity partners of that event. It was inspirational to get a medal from those two people as I crossed the finish line.

Matt and Ash are looking to expand the program and are encouraging people to support it in any way they can, both through funding but also through encouraging anyone they know to become a swim teacher. These are the people we should support and celebrate: Ash and Matt. They are people who've worked so hard to turn something so terrible into a positive for the benefit of others.