Page 2367 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 30 July 2019
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are particularly mentioned in the petition, have been through a series of evolutions since the first playgrounds were built there. Playground safety has evolved and the options now for safe, interactive and accessible play equipment are far better than they were when the original playgrounds were used by young inner north residents. Slides and swings may still be, fun but the old metal and wooden ones no longer meet the current needs of our children and families. I think there are expectations that we can do better than that.
The petitioners call on the government to create a new destination recreation park, a large playground with high quality creative and sustainable equipment, designed to be fun as well as physically and mentally challenging. They want a park that is inclusive, that is suitable for children of all ages and abilities, accessible and inviting for people of all cultures and age groups; a park that is adventurous, offering nature-based and risky play that encourages children to explore their own capabilities, manage risk and build confidence and resilience; a park that is distinctive. They want an iconic space which offers a memorable experience and creates a space to build local community and a park that is integrated so that it is amenable to multi-use recreation and proximate to cafes and other services to encourage foot traffic and incidental use.
Our inner north communities are, and always have been, warm and engaging and hubs of community interaction. A play space like the one described by the petitioners would add to the existing sense of fun and community and certainly help keep our kids entertained.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety, Minister for Health, Minister for Urban Renewal) (10.45): I wish to speak briefly to the petition tabled by Mr Rattenbury. I certainly welcome this petition and congratulate Hedda Ransan-Cooper on facilitating this petition being brought to the Assembly. I endorse everything that Minister Rattenbury said about the inner north being a warm place and a place where people want to get together, and of course about the changing demographics of the region.
There are many play spaces in the inner north but many of them, as Mr Rattenbury has indicated, are older spaces and smaller play spaces. Since this issue has been raised with me a number of times at mobile offices and directly by email I have had a quick look around and every time I drive around the inner north I notice another little playground that is well located in terms of being walkable for people but maybe a little old in terms of the facilities that it has.
What this petition is calling for is something a little different: a destination and playground with some adventurous equipment and opportunity for doing something new in the inner north, particularly in the Dickson, Downer, Watson, Hackett area. We have of course already got a destination playground in the inner north, in Glebe Park, and that playground will soon be augmented with a new nature play space. There is work underway in terms of designing and finalising the design and then starting to build that nature play space. Glebe Park was also, in April, the location for
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