Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I really enjoyed spending time with the year 9 humanities and social science students at Corpus Christi College, thanks to an invitation from their teacher, Lidia Di Giuseppe, who I know through the Fremantle Italian Club. The kids I met are studying the Australian political system, and they're pretty well versed in the key details of parliamentary structures and processes. The Q&A part of the session, I have to say, did go a bit wider than that and covered topics including what was the biggest conflict I have faced in parliament but also what my favourite fruit is, whether I have ever met Senator Pauline Hanson, what my opinion of memes is—I had to say about memes that I know they're important but I don't always understand why—and, of course, tomato sauce—fridge or pantry? I got quite a boo for that one, because I generally go pantry with the tomato sauce. I was grateful to Hannah Oversby, a member of the class, who wrote a short blog post to describe my visit and was kind enough to say that they had learned from our conversation some things that they wouldn't have got from a textbook.

It's always a privilege to speak with school students about politics. It's always been important, and I think it's now more important than ever that young people take an interest in problem-solving and decision-making and how we do those things to the highest standard with the greatest degree of inclusion, and in how to be involved and how to make change, because that is what politics is about. So I say thank you to the bright and curious kids at Corpus Christi for having me as a guest at their school and for engaging with me in that kind of conversation.