Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today during this first week of parliament in 2015 to acknowledge some of the most important leaders in our community: our emerging junior leaders in our great schools, especially my schools on the northern Gold Coast. As the school year now begins in earnest, our newly elected school leaders will begin their extraordinarily significant and very important task of leading their schools, setting the example, and supporting and mentoring their fellow students.

I have 28 great schools within my electorate of Fadden with a new one opening this year. I visit them all as often as I can to encourage and support their young leaders and to recognise the future generation. I always enjoy saying to the student leaders in the Gold Coast, 'You are our plan A. And guess what plan B is? We don't have one. You are it. You are the gift your parents give to a generation they will not see. You are the future of our country.'

I enjoy participating in awards ceremonies, school presentations and inductions. I speak often about the role of democracy and the role of students in that democracy. I always enjoy question and answers with students, and some of the trickiest questions I have ever encountered have not been in question time, at the hands of the Leader of the Opposition, but from a student in year 6 or 7 brimming with pride and with an inquisitive mind.

It is true that Fadden's newest crops of school leaders will need to mentor and support their fellow students. I also encourage them in this challenging task with the wise words of Ralph Nader, who said of leadership, 'I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.' I also add, that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. So, I would encourage the student leaders in my electorate of Fadden to please support your fellow students. They look up to you. Do so with an eye of growing the next generation of leaders within your communities.

It is also important to mentor our young leaders and help them grow and achieve their goals. That is why I have created the Stuart Robert MP Leadership Medal, which is awarded in most schools throughout the northern Gold Coast to promote and encourage leadership. It is my hope that upon graduation, and perhaps some reflection, students will continue with their leadership journeys in the wider community and reach their full potential.

Suffice to say, that through my school visits, I have had the great privilege of getting to know many of these young leaders. I always find myself tremendously impressed with their self-confidence, resilience, courage and commitment to what they do. They do us all proud. Perhaps we, here, have much to learn from them. They are certainly the product of all the support and encouragement their parents and schools give them.

Congratulations to our 2015 Fadden school leaders. I look forward to following your leadership journey with great interest. It is now my great pleasure, with much pride, to seek leave to table the list of names of our student leaders for 2015.

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