Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

enator GROGAN () (): I rise today to recognise the role of education in strengthening our democracy and to celebrate the efforts of teachers throughout the state, my state of South Australia, to promote a sound understanding of democracy in our school system.

To fully participate in our democratic process, people need to understand how it works, which is why it's so inspiring to see teachers in my home state delivering excellent education, teaching their students how this parliament works, how elections work, how votes are undertaken and what role they can play in being part of that. So at the start of this parliament, which is the sunrise after the election, I am filled with great hope.

I had an excellent visit with a school, St Paul Lutheran School, in Blair Athol just a few months ago. They invited me to go and talk to them because their students were studying exactly that: democracy, government, elections, voting and Australian history. As part of that, they were setting up their own political parties within the classroom and working out what the key issues for them would be, and they sent me a range of letters, that each of the students had put together, outlining what they wanted to see change. A number of them were about school uniforms. We had some dog parks. It also ranged to issues of taxing and social services.

They were very impressive letters, from a group of year 5 students from Blair Athol. They asked amazingly deep questions, which were a little confronting but an awful lot of fun. So I would like to recognise the extraordinary job that some of our teachers do in ensuring their students can participate fully and understand our democratic process. (Time expired)