This year marks 25 years of the Mitchell Youth Leadership Forum, a singularly successful program in Australia bringing together every public and private high school in my electorate and some from outside my electorate. There are 300 children every year who come and learn about three core values: service, integrity and courage. The Mitchell Youth Leadership Forum has, over those 25 years, had an impact on literally tens of thousands of young people.

All of the kids who come along get put into small groups. They don't know a single person in them. Each group has leaders, one man and one woman, who are former students and have been trained in leadership—young people leading young people. Over three days, without their phones, they immerse themselves with people they don't know in leadership exercises based on the themes of those three values and hear from great speakers. This year, we heard from Lucinda Harvey on breaking barriers and building community; Bianca Kulikovskis on courage to create; Chris Lee on leading yourself; Akanisi Ledua on leading with service and inspiring with purpose; and Josh and Nathan Katz on whatever it takes. Over the years, we've had Young Australians of the Year and some singularly impressive Australians come and speak.

I want to give a shout out this year in particular to Her Excellency the Governor-General, Sam Mostyn, who came and addressed and spoke with the 250 young people who were gathered in their teams, after their community services component. This year, community service involved dealing with projects at Aminya Village, McCall Gardens, Riding for the Disabled and Tall Timbers Centre—great community institutions at which the children learned about serving others.

Her Excellency was outstanding in her presentation. Those young people had an opportunity to engage with the woman at the apex of our constitution, at the apex of constitutional power, and to simply ask her about her leadership journey, her commitment to service and her constitutional role. I want to thank Her Excellency for being there in Castle Hill. Everyone was in Castle Hill on that day, it seems. The Premier was there, and the Deputy Premier was there. Her Excellency made the time to come and enthusiastically visit 300 young leaders, and it was an excellent exchange. They will remember that for life. I praise the person that she is and her great spirit that led her to her role and her commitment to leaders and young leadership in Australia.

I want to take time to thank the committee. This annual event, three days with these kids, is a year-long endeavour. We had great sponsors of the forum this year: Nature's Sunshine Products of Australia, Castle Towers, QIC and Peppers The Hills Lodge. Their dedication and their financial commitment enable these young leaders to come together, engage, get to know each other and strengthen the fabric of my north-western community, with kids who never knew each other leaving with friendships for life. The committee that runs it comprises Tristan Smith, Ronie Quinn, Steve Edwards, Jan Cox, Ged Lewis, Thomas Kelly, Jessie Peake, Ken Shaw, Daniel Ridley, Marcus Cannon, Jane Porto, Lauren Nowacka, Chloe Lahood, Ronan Pillay, Deyyan Jafar and Simon Teh, most of whom are now on the board after 25 years and are former students who have been through the program themselves. Their voluntary commitment year round is just absolutely amazing. I also want to thank the CEO, Tristan Smith. He's a young teacher who works with the Department of Education. He's a former student as well. He came out of Kellyville High School, and he's now with the Department of Education. He's an outstanding man. His leadership was something to behold at this forum. The challenge we had this year was that our regular site on the banks of the Nepean River is being refitted, so we were at Katoomba, at StayKCC. I want to thank StayKCC also for their outstanding commitment. A three-day program with this many kids and involving this much commitment, time and effort—and with all of the community work, the challenges and the other things that go with it, day and night—couldn't be done without this impressive team.

After 25 years, and having served as either the chair or the patron for 17 years myself, I can't speak highly enough to members of parliament of getting youth together, hearing from them and letting them immerse themselves, without their digital devices, in the simple principles of service, integrity and courage around some excellent Australians. It produces great results.

I thank everybody who's given us so much over 25 years. I thank my predecessor, Alan Cadman, for founding this forum. We've modernised it. We've expanded it. We get schools from Indigenous Australia. We do everything we can to make it available to everybody. It's a special thing. I particularly pay tribute to Her Excellency the Governor-General for taking a moment of her time to do something very special for these young Australians.