Greatest equaliser of them all
IT is difficult to pick the barrister marching down a Gold Coast beach without the wig and gown, the surgeon patrolling between the red and yellow flags with white zinc cream smeared on their nose, or even the Trade Minister tucking into a chicken parmigiana inside a surf club.
Surf lifesaving clubs are the great equalisers on the Gold Coast.
They’re where movers and shakers slip into their “other lives”, says Southport Surf Life Saving Club president Shane Roberts.
“You don’t really talk about your other life when you’re at the surf club,” he added.
Irrespective of craft or creed, they’ll roll up their sleeves fundraising, grind through admin or patrol beaches side by side with local tradesmen, teachers and nurses.
“It doesn’t matter what you do during the week – when you’re at the club you’re a lifesaver,” says Currumbin Surf Life Saving Club CEO Michael Sullivan.
All through summer Gold Coast tourism boss Paul Donovan will drop off his kids at Surfers Paradise SLSC.
Olympian Brooke Hanson does the same at Currumbin.
Burleigh MP Michael Hart savours the time spent patrolling Palm Beach.
At Northcliffe SLSC, Australian Trade Minister Steven Ciobo, radio personalities Luke and Ashley Bradnam and the multi-millionaire owners of BMD Group, Mick and Denise Power, are members. As movie heavyweight and former Queensland Tourism boss Terry Jackman says: “Mate, I’ve been at Mermaid SLSC on a Friday night with some of the top businessmen in the country.
“And no one gives a hoot who they are because they’re having a beer, all shouting in turns like the rest of us,”
“You could be having beers with a bunch of billionaires or a bunch of average diggers – this has been critical to the success of the surf lifesaving clubs.”
Mr Jackman, who has been involved with both Mermaid Beach AEME and Northcliffe club for decades, says surf club culture is the big attraction.
Mermaid SLSC, on one of the city’s most exclusive streets at Hedges Ave, is a medium-size club but punch-