Wednesday, 18 October 2023

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (14:39): (362) My question this afternoon is for the Minister for Environment, and I ask the minister: when will he be signing off and approving the lease for the Simpson Speedway club so they can continue keeping their facility alive? The Simpson Speedway is a marvellous facility west of Colac. It is an organisation that brings together many, many uses for the Crown lease that exists in that space. It provides a community hall. It provides a large source of revenue to that community in fundraising. All money generated by the Simpson Speedway of course gets spent locally, whether it is through local contractors or in local businesses. It is estimated that the return to the community is in the order of many, many millions of dollars. The lease has now been sitting with your office, Minister, since May last year, and the community and the people at Simpson would really appreciate a prompt response so they can get on with their fundraising in their organisation.