Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to pass on my congratulations to Mingara Recreation Club and Dymocks. I had the pleasure of launching a literacy drive some weeks ago on the Central Coast. Mingara is a club that has a real sense of community and it is often involved in community issues. Along with Dymocks, Mingara has donated over $45,000 worth of books for preschools. In the last two or three weeks 13 preschools, all community based ones, have been involved in this drive. We have been going around to these preschools delivering books and reading to kids. Because my electorate of Dobell has the lowest household incomes in New South Wales, it is an electorate with a lot of disadvantaged people. Sometimes for young children in my electorate a literacy drive going to community day care facilities and childcare facilities is the first time that they have had the opportunity of looking at new books. A lot of these facilities have books that are very dated and torn. That puts these kids at such a disadvantage as they are starting off in life, as they are behind the eight ball in terms of literacy and of being able to read books and enjoy a love of books.

In particular I would like to acknowledge John Millard, who is the community manager at Mingara and has put together this program. It has grown from the situation of a year or two ago, where those involved only visited and donated to one school, to the situation now where they visit and donate to over 13 schools. I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic work of the Central Coast Mariners football club, who have come along and supported this literacy drive, nowhere more than at Hopetown school, which is a school for disadvantaged primary school through to high school children. As we were reading to children there, we noted the effect of the positive role that sports stars can play in turning kids on to books. Nowhere was that more evident than at Hopetown school, where we went into a classroom in which teachers had been regularly assaulted. We had been warned that we might need to evacuate very quickly because of the violent behaviour of the kids. But you would not have known that when we were there. We were there opening up boxes and were all looking at books, sitting down with these kids and reading to them, often for the first time. The thing that got them in at that particular school was the work that their football stars did, sitting with them reading books to them. That shows that not only can you be champions on the football field, as the Mariners have shown by already reaching the grand final of the A-League on two occasions, but you can have a sense of community and also make sure that you contribute to children’s education. So I would like to commend the work that Mingara and Dymocks have done through this tremendous project, and I look forward to continuing to support it in the future.