Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Normanhurst Eagles Football Club is one of the most successful in my area, with nearly a thousand players, one of the highest levels of women's participation across 79 teams and five wins across different competitions. A great club should have great facilities to match. This year too many of the club's games were called off due to the inadequacy of the oval. The Normanhurst Eagles clubhouse, which they share with the Normanhurst cricket club, is not fit for purpose. The change rooms are from the 1970s and don't adequately serve the growing women's participation. Smashed windows are from another era, and the rickety stairs exclude people with disability. I'll always be a champion for our local sporting clubs, because teams like the Normo Eagles play a vital role in creating healthy and active young people with a love of sport, and they foster belonging in our community.

One of the reasons I have fought so hard for better telco in the Berowra electorate is that our electorate is prone to bushfires and floods. I want to do everything I can to back in the RFS and emergency service personnel in keeping our community safe. So it concerns me when I hear that mobile communications are so bad that volunteers at the Hillside RFS struggle to get phone calls in and out of their station. This is 2024, and this is metropolitan Sydney. I'm sick of the chronic underservicing of my electorate by the telcos. They're endangering life and limb when they don't adequately service the RFS and our bushfire-prone areas. I'll always fight to ensure that emergency service personnel have what they need to continue to support our community.

John McAuley recently celebrated his 100th birthday. A remarkable Australian and the head of one of my electorate's most significant families, John enjoyed a distinguished career as an economist which culminated in his role as the chief economist at the State Bank. With his lively intellect, John's insightful commentary following every federal budget is something I always look forward to receiving. In 1946 John married Margaret O'Connor. They had three children, nine grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. John served in the radar section of the RAAF in New Guinea in World War II. This year he was the only World War II veteran to march the full length of the Sydney Anzac Day march. John, on behalf of the Berowra community and the people of Australia, I wish you a very happy 100th birthday.

Telecommunications is not a nice-to-have; it's a right. In 2016 I promised to deliver a new mobile phone tower to the Brooklyn-Dangar Island area. Despite Telstra's attempts to frustrate the project and come up with inappropriate locations, through working with the Dangar Island community and never giving up the fight we've achieved a great outcome. Telstra and NBN wanted to leave Brooklyn and Dangar Island behind, but in both cases I've delivered better mobile and NBN services as a direct result of my advocacy.

Improved telecommunications are about making it easier for emergency services personnel to do their job, it's about ensuring that people can work and study from home and it's about building future capacity for technological improvements. I'm so proud to have worked with a great community to deliver this vital outcome and ensure people have the telco they need to operate in the modern world.