Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on something that, I think, is tremendously important—that is, our field days, our show societies and our shows. I would just like to put on the record that tomorrow morning the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia will be opening its gates for the 175th year of the Royal Adelaide Show, which makes it the second-oldest institution in South Australia after the South Australian police force. I should also put on the record that I have a very good reason and vested interest in why I think this is such a fantastic institution: for the next 10 days I will be the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society president's wife. We will enjoy very much partaking in what, I think, is a great institution in South Australia and which, I think—and I know that Senator Xenophon and Senator McEwen will be supportive of this as well—is one that all South Australians can be extraordinarily proud of.

I rise to speak about the importance of the show not for that reason and my connection with it but because I think it is such an important vehicle through which we sell the message of the country. It has become quite obvious in recent times that people who live in the city are losing a connection with where their food and their fibre come from. We did some surveying of our city cousins and found that many of the children had not actually spent any time on a farm and did not have any connection with somebody who lived in the country. When we were growing up we used to say that those people who lived in the city always had some connection with the country. Slowly but surely, that connection is diminishing.

Our show societies, our shows and our field days play such an extraordinarily important role because shows are not just about scary rides, sideshows, dippy dogs and fairy floss. Our show system is about education and promotion, as well as being about fun and entertainment. It is amazing to watch the city kids when they turn up at the show because many of them have never seen a cow being milked or a sheep being shorn. They have probably never patted an alpaca; they probably do not even know what one looks like. It is, therefore, extraordinarily important that we keep maintaining that connection between the country and the city.

But it is not just about the big city shows that happen around the country—and there are some great shows that go on. It is also about the feeder activities that feed into the show. The country shows and the country field days are really important. In 15 days time the Riverland Field Days will open their gates, as a showcase of what happens in the Riverland. In 1958 we had our first Riverland field day and in that year they had 26 exhibitors. Fifty years later, they had 500 exhibitors, and nearly 600 exhibitors will be exhibiting at the Riverland Field Days in two weeks time.

I would just like to put on the record my congratulations for the extraordinary work that all the volunteers do to put these sorts of shows on. I would like to acknowledge the organisers of the Riverland Field Days—the chairman Ashley Chabrel and his committee of Anthony Fulwood, John Spronk, Ian Webber, Stirling Sykes, Dwayne Leske, John Plush, Wes Kalisch, Stiven Ludas and James Butler, along with the ever hardworking manager Tim Grieger and Anne Stepien. Apart from Tim and Anne, all of these people put in massive hours of their time for nothing, which is extraordinarily important for the community that I live in, in the Riverland. And I would imagine that every other member that lives in a regional community would equally be able to stand up and say how important their field day or their agricultural show is to their community.

The importance of agriculture in our communities across Australia cannot be understated. As I have said a million times in this place: if you cannot dig it out of the ground and you do not grow it, you are not creating new wealth. So, the opportunity for our agricultural communities to network and to undertake extension work and to go along and share information about research and things that are happening on the farm is amazingly important. It also gives our secondary industries—machinery dealers, financial institutions or research institutions—the opportunity to network with a group of people in one place.

It goes even more broadly than that, because every small community shuts down for the field days or their shows, because everybody wants to go along and see what the rest of the community has been doing for the last year. Schools will take the day off and take the kids down to the field day or the show so that they can participate in it. It becomes an education experience about what is really going on in their communities—not just about maths, reading and writing.

The importance of our field days and our shows cannot be underestimated. I would just like to put on the record tonight my personal appreciation and the appreciation of just about every community across rural and regional South Australia for the extraordinarily hard work and efforts of the volunteers that go towards putting together these amazing events that are so integral to the success and the unity of our local communities.

Senate adjourned at 18:47