Senator John McGahon - speech from 8 Dec 2020

Thanks, Cairlock. Leader, I too just want to discuss the wonderful funding that was announced this morning for swimming and I suppose I'm an avid sea swimmer for the last four or five years. I do it all year round and I absolutely love it. The benefits for your mental health and everything else are fantastic. I can't stress it enough how brilliant a hobby it is. And in 2020 we've seen the absolute huge explosion in the popularity of sea swimming. But the problem with that is now what we have is we have X amount of people who are taken to swimming that maybe aren't as proficient swimmers as they think they are. They can get into some serious dangerous situations that maybe don't respect the sea as well as they should. And I would love if the government in 2021, because of the popularity of sea swimming, and it's only going to get more popular, it's not going to ebb and flow or go away, that the government launches a really strong campaign to encourage people to go back and get swimming lessons again, even if it's just a refresher course, to really talk about the dangers that the sea can offer, whether that's riptide currents, whether it's get involved, how to get out of them, for example. Because I can tell you now, there's so many people who think they're experienced swimmers and will go into the sea and then all of a sudden will get themselves into serious trouble, will struggle to try and get out of it. And sea swimming is only going to get more popular. So I would love to see a debate about the benefits of it, the health benefits of it, but more importantly, what the government are going to do to try and promote safety around swimming in this country in 2021.