House debates

Tuesday, 8 August 2017

Statements by Members

Chisholm Electorate: Education

1:34 pm

Photo of Julia BanksJulia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

By far and away the best part of my role as the member for Chisholm is the amazing people I meet who every day make a difference to our local and broader community. Last week, I had the honour of a comprehensive tour of Aurora School. Aurora School is a school for deaf and deaf-blind children and their families. It is founded and underpinned by the passion of the amazing teachers and staff who, without exception, conveyed that they feel privileged to be teachers and educators in this school. Under the superb leadership of Bernie Coleman, you can visibly see the development opportunities, happiness and excitement for these children to embrace life.

Similarly, I attended Alkira Centre. Alkira is a wonderful organisation, again, because of the people and staff who encourage, teach and passionately embrace the development of those who are socially and intellectually disabled to integrate into the paid and volunteer workforce, whether that be to learn barista skills or to engage in wonderful art and creative pursuits. The staff and residents of Alkira make up an integral, vibrant and important part of our community.

There are countless individuals in Chisholm who contribute outside of organisations to our community, no matter their age, as is the case with the inspirational primary school student Luke Eaton, who constantly advocates for the protection of orangutans and the introduction of mandatory labelling of products containing palm oil.

Given their contributions to our community, it's the people I meet every day in my electorate of Chisholm that I am most proud of.