Tallebudgera Creek, Surf Lifesaving

13 Sep 2013 10:19 AMMichael Hart

 

Tallebudgera Creek, Surf Lifesaving

 

Mr HART (Burleigh—LNP) (3.14 pm): Surf-lifesavers go back to work next Saturday and they

will be manning our beaches for the next six months, taking care of people who are swimming at our

beaches and doing a great job about it. It may come as a bit of a surprise to some members in this

House, but I am an active lifesaver.

 

Miss Barton interjected.

 

Mr HART: It really should not come as a surprise because I have mentioned in this place

several times, member for Broadwater, that I am actively involved with the Pacific Surf Life Saving Club in the middle of Palm Beach. As an active member of a surf club, obviously water safety in my electorate concerns me greatly. I have for some time been concerned about water safety at  Tallebudgera Creek. Many members in this place will have visited the Gold Coast over the years, no doubt, and they may well have swum in Tallebudgera Creek, as do thousands and thousands of people every year.

 

Mrs Frecklington: School camps.

 

Mr HART: Yes, school camps. Tallebudgera Creek is guarded by the Neptune Royal Life

Saving Club. They are a volunteer organisation and obviously they struggle sometimes to provide the coverage that the Gold Coast deserves. People go swimming on the Gold Coast from six and seven o’clock in the morning in summer, when the sun comes up at four o’clock—they go out swimming and they will swim until almost dark. So in March this year I wrote to the Neptune Royal Life Saving Club and I wrote to Surf Life Saving Queensland and asked them to have a look at whether there was any way that they could extend those hours of coverage at Tallebudgera Creek.

 

Tomorrow morning there will be a gathering—which will include me, Gold Coast City Councillor

Daphne McDonald, Neptune Royal Life Saving Club President Clive Newman, Surf Life Saving

Queensland Chief Operations Officer George Hill and Surf Life Saving Queensland Gold Coast

Regional Manager Eddie Bennet—and we will be announcing, through a collaborative approach, that Tallebudgera Creek will now be guarded from 7.30 in the morning until six at night. So there will be somebody watching all of those people, and the safety of people swimming in Tallebudgera Creek will be greatly increased. There is a very strong inward current when the tide comes in and again when the tide turns. It is quite a dangerous place. Sadly, one person died during the 2012-13 patrol season.

 

In fact, from 1999 to 2013 there were four drownings in Tallebudgera Creek alone, making it the

fourth highest drowning black spot in Queensland and the third highest on the Gold Coast.

With those few words, we have fixed the problem at Tallebudgera. It only took a couple of

letters, a couple of phone calls and a bit of organisation.

 

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