Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today marks two years since the people of my community entrusted me to be their federal member of parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the good people of my electorate for the faith they placed in me two years ago today. It has been a busy two years, and it has been an honour to serve the hardworking locals of my community.

I cannot think of a better way to celebrate this milestone with my community than to host local students in parliament today. Today I would like to officially welcome the grade 7 students from St Michaels College in Caboolture to Canberra and to the Australian parliament. This group of eager young minds have come on their annual school trip to experience firsthand what happens in our capital. Today I met with the students before their Parliamentary Education Office tour and was able to take them on an unofficial Longman tour of parliament with a visit to my parliamentary office. Students were able to inspect my office, sit at my desk and understand what it is like to be here in this place. I wish the students all the best for the rest of their trip in Canberra. I understand that they have been visiting some great places, including the Australian War Memorial, Questacon and the AIS.

The visit to parliament today follows my recent trip to St Michaels College to chat with students about democracy and parliament as part of their civics education in the school curriculum. Today, I got the chance to show them where it all happens. Not only did the students have the chance to learn about the function of parliament but they also visited the public galleries here and in the Senate. Today the students were able to stay and watch question time from the gallery, which I am sure they found very interesting.

I would also like to welcome students from Tullawong State School, who last week came down for a visit to Canberra. It was great to see Tullawong students representing Longman and looking their best in their school uniforms. There were some interesting characters in this group of students and, as can be expected, there were some great questions put to me. Students were curious to know where parliamentarians had lunch and what it means when the bells ring in parliament—questions which show that these young people were very interested in learning about our nation's great democratic tradition.

Our nation is one with a great history, one that should be celebrated and understood. It is very important that our young people have every opportunity to learn about what we have achieved as a country so that they can contribute to our future and uphold Australia's great democratic tradition. It was great to see some local leaders from my community, representing what I think is a great community, here in Canberra. I look forward to getting back home to talk further with them about democracy.