Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (20:22): (2832) First of all, I would just like to congratulate you, President, and also Ms Lovell and Mr McCracken on incredible valedictory speeches and wonderful careers. I wish you all the very best in the next chapter. Well done.

On Saturday Brad Battin and I were so proud to join Liberal for Pakenham Radmila Dyson to announce that a Jess Wilson–led government will invest $20 million into the Cardinia Life stadium redevelopment. That means four new basketball courts, taking it to a total of 12; a dedicated show court with seating for 1500 people, which will be such an incredible boost to the region; three new half courts outdoors for casual play; a brand new gym facility; and modern change rooms. This is so exciting for the community for a lot of reasons. It was such a fun day. The place was just packed full of hundreds of young players and their families and friends. When Brad announced the investment, he said it was on one condition: somebody had to shoot a hoop; they had to get a three-pointer. The contestants lined up, and it was young Aaron who really shot that goal and scored himself an incredible place in history.

When Cardinia Life opened in 2006, it was a first-class facility and it was something that locals were so proud of. Yet while we have seen the rapidly growing community, we have not seen the infrastructure keep up. There has been rapid population growth, yet we have not had the hospitals and we have not had the sports facilities and the roads to keep up. Sports have a lot of benefits. Beyond physical and mental health, they also build stronger communities and they reduce crime. The population that Cardinia Life served has more than doubled since its heyday in 2006 and the stadium is not fit for purpose anymore. Kids are starting basketball at 9 o’clock at night on school nights. The stadium is open until 10 pm – it is booked out every night until 10 pm – and every single season, just because of capacity, 20 to 30 teams are turned away. That is about 500 players that miss out. The community is anxious about what is going to happen next, because participation is falling.

I want to give a special shout-out to the people that have advocated for so many years – the local schools; the sporting groups; the 135 user groups that use it; Basketball Victoria; the Pakenham and District Basketball Association, especially Ryan Shallcross; and of course Radmila, who has advocated for this for such a long time. So my adjournment is for the Minister for Sport. The action that I seek is: will you outline to the community why it has been neglected for the past 12 years and why people have not had the opportunity to participate in sport?