Andrew Leigh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
MELBOURNE
TUESDAY, 24 MAY 2016

SUBJECT/S: Labor’s positive plans for local sporting infrastructure

PETA MURPHY, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DUNKLEY: It is excellent to be here today with the Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Andrew Leigh, to make a really exciting announcement for the Karingal sporting community and more broadly. We are here at the Karingal Bulls Football Netball Club Pavilion. Anyone who has been here knows it is a pretty old and decrepit site and it’s a great community club that has been talking for a long-time about needing to get these facilities re-developed.

I’m stoked to announce today that a Shorten Labor Government will put forward $1 million for an integrated approach towards facilities for this area. What that means is this redevelopment of this pavilion will be able to go ahead and $650,000 will match the Frankston City Council’s commitment next year for this development. It also means that the Karingal Bull’s senior team, junior team and netball team will be able to put $160,000 that was going to be put towards this development towards working with schools and the community in order to facilitate and promote junior support, particularly for girls. Anyone who knows me knows I’m very excited about promoting girls and women in sport.

We are also able to say that $140,000 would go towards building the netball court that is needed here, which will be terrific. This facility will be able to be redeveloped and go ahead. The Long Island Cricket club will be able to move in here and what that will mean for the Peninsula Junior Strikers Soccer Club is that a Shorten Labor Government will commit $50,000 so they can redevelop an area of the club to have facilities for girls to have a change room – they have 9 junior teams – and that will be amazing.

These facilities are what are really needed here. We know that in Karingal and across this area – it is a great community – but there are areas and people that struggle and sporting clubs are so integral to a strong and healthy community. This is an area where schools under a Turnbull Government will lose $3 million a year in funding and that puts such pressure on the community and such pressure on sporting clubs to pick it up.

Not only will a Shorten Labor Government fund the schools properly, we will also support clubs, like these clubs, to have the facilities that they need. I am so pleased to be joined by the Mayor of Frankston City Council, who are putting up a lot of money for this project too and it’s great to be able to work with them, with the presidents of the Long Island Cricket Club, the Karingal Bulls Football Club, the Peninsular Strikers Soccer Club and some excellent netballers here too.

Thank you so much to Andrew for being here and who will now say a few words.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER: Thanks Peta and thanks to the Karingal Football Netball Club for hosting us here today. This is a great announcement for a great community. Many of us, when we think back to our childhoods, remember it through the lens of sport. Peta and I were both pretty passionate sports players as youngsters. It's those experiences growing up playing sport that will often shape a child's upbringing. Sport teaches you the importance of grit and hard work in how to win, how to lose gracefully and how to work with a team to achieve a great result. We need all Australian children to have access to the sporting facilities that will let them fly.

The announcement today is a testament to Peta Murphy's hard work in persuading Labor to put forward $1 million for this important announcement. Peta Murphy has done the hard work with the local communities in making the case for a Shorten Labor Government to fund this sporting infrastructure. This is sporting infrastructure that will outlast all of us up here today and it will make sure that generations of kids are able to participate in sport to get the fitness benefits, but also the emotional resilience and the life skills that come from a great sporting team. Peta is a stand-out candidate for Labor, somebody who will make an awesome Member for Dunkley. It's an announcement like this that shows that Peta isn't just somebody who will fight for great policies on the national stage, she is somebody who understands the local community. Peta loves her local community and today is announcing that a Shorten Labor Government would put $1 million into this critical piece of sporting infrastructure.

James, did you want make a few remarks?

COUNCILLOR JAMES DOOLEY, MAYOR OF FRANKSTON CITY COUNCIL: I did. Firstly, thank you very much on behalf of Frankston Council for your commitment to the Karingal area and Andrew thank you for listening to the case of the locals. This facility will be a true multi-purpose facility. We've basically got the Karingal Bulls Football Netball Club, the Long Island Cricket Club and over the road we've got the Strikers. We've also got the Ballam Park Athletics Club here. This whole facility, this whole district, is totally deserving and when I go around and talk to other clubs, somehow the clubs say to me, "James, we need better facilities" and I say, "well, the people who really need it most are the Karingal Bulls," and they all say, "Yes, I know."

So it's totally deserving. Frankston Council really couldn't do it on their own, so the commitment of money today will, basically, it puts them in the game. We are so grateful for your commitment and with this, you're correct, it will outlast us, this club. I'd like to say and whilst we're here, Tom Lindsay, you've worked hard, Digger and everyone here, but Tom you've worked so hard to basically make this happen over a period of time. People have listened to you and your positive message, you've sold the strengths of the area, you've sold the strengths of Ballam Park and yes, sport is the glue that binds us. We're very grateful to the Frankston Council for its commitment and we look forward to these rooms being built in the future.

PETA MURPHY: Thanks James. I want to support James' comments. I don't know how many phone calls I've had with Tom and how many times I've been out here to see the rooms and be part of the club. Digger, thank you for having me. Vaughan and the team from the Strikers, you know I've spent a few hours with you guys on Saturday morning and met the juniors and walked around the club rooms. The advocacy of everyone here has enabled me to go to Andrew and the Federal Party and say you know we have to back these guys in, because they love their sport, they love their community and congratulations to you guys.

DANIEL WATTS, PRESIDENT OF THE KARINGAL FOOTBALL CLUB: I better say a few words, so just on behalf of everyone, just on the Karingal Football Netball Club and the entire community, this project, as James has rightly pointed out, is something the whole community needs to boost itself up. The area itself is lacking in facilities to look after the whole community and I know by making this happen today, Peta's contribution, not just today, but over probably the last six months that we've been negotiating with her, has been exceptional. As a club and as a person it makes me so proud to see that this area will get facilities that can facilitate for the kids coming through and give them hope in the future. That’s really what sport is all about - giving them hope. So today hopefully we've got the blue that will put the hope back into the Karingal community and we just want to say thank you to everyone for their contributions. Sorry I better say, thank you to Tom Lindsay also.

ENDS