Page 1146 - Week 04 - Friday, 23 April 2021
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useful. Some practical ideas were put to me for the first time through the petition, through Mr Pettersson and his Labor colleagues, and, indeed, through other members of this place. We welcome those ideas. We continue to support these investments through the budget. We have put our money where our mouth is in terms of upgrades to Yerrabi Pond. They were supported by members on this side of the place yesterday but, unfortunately, were not supported by the opposition.
We will get on with the work of consulting with the community on the upgrades. I welcome today’s motion. I indicate that the government will support the amendment put forward by Mr Braddock in relation to the use of the waterway for recreational purposes.
MS ORR (Yerrabi) (10.38): I rise today to speak in support of this motion and to acknowledge the great work John and Kay have done in bringing this issue forward.
We often talk about Yerrabi and Gungahlin as being new and rapidly growing; but Yerrabi Pond is one of the oldest parts of Gungahlin, one of the original parts. Part of our story up in Yerrabi that we do not always acknowledge is that we are not young. We are not all new. Some parts of it are starting to mature and need a bit more focus than we might sometimes realise, because we are trying to still build those newer parts.
This is one area that has been there since 1991 and has served our community well. As we grow up, we need to invest more into it. We need to think strongly about the parts of Yerrabi Pond that are already established—the skate park, the playgrounds, the toilet blocks—which are not necessarily meeting the needs that we would like them to meet now. And there are all those other areas down by the foreshore.
Yerrabi Pond is quite big. It has a lot of areas that have a lot of potential that could be realised to accommodate a lot more uses and a lot more demand from our community. We do love this space. That is what has been captured in this initiative from the community. Let us make the existing bits as good as they possibly can be, but let us also realise the potential of the Amaroo side of the pond, the areas north of the Yerrabi foreshore. Let us look at what new uses we can put into this park to accommodate the new needs of our community. We have grown up as a community; we have new interests. Parkrun did not even exist when Yerrabi Pond first started. Now we have parkrun there every weekend, with heaps of people coming down. As we have heard, Mr Pettersson and Mr Braddock are not running very fast during parkrun, but they are still there.
Mr Pettersson: That is not what I said.
MS ORR: I am sorry if I have misrepresented Mr Pettersson’s running skills.
We have these new uses that are coming up around this area. Back in 1999 they were not even imagined, were not even used. When you have such a loved area of our community, such a loved space, it is natural that as we grow up it needs to grow up with us.
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