Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the outstanding educational achievements in my electorate of Mitchell by both the public and private institutions. We have some great facilities in my electorate that produce great educational outcomes. In particular, this year I was privileged to present the Australian Student Prize to many young high achievers from my community. The Australian Student Prize was initiated by a former government and has been in place since the early 1990s. It is awarded annually to 500 secondary students, particularly senior secondary students, nominated by state and territory ministers in recognition of excellence and achievement. Often in Australia we are very good at recognising sporting achievement or social achievement, but we do need to be better at recognising academic achievement. I want to praise individually the people who have been successful in achieving these awards: Eshan Affan, Adrian Chye, Heather Cockburn, Dulakshi Fernando, Sophia Haq, Angela Hwang, Jason Kwok, David Lee, Sindhura Nirmalarajan, Shashank Ramakrishnan and Rohit Rangarajan.

I want to acknowledge their fine sacrifices and achievements in their fields. They are high achievers. I had the privilege of meeting them and their families in my office. Additionally, I would also like to acknowledge Redeemer Baptist School, on the border of my electorate, in which another lower primary school achiever won an individual Australian government award. I congratulate her on her achievement. (Time expired)