Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise with a great deal of pleasure to talk about the wonderful work of an organisation called Concern Australia and an innovative program that it runs in the suburb of Dandenong. The organisation Concern Australia was established in 1972 by the Reverend John Smith. He sought to provide support and advocacy to disadvantaged groups within the community—the poor, the underprivileged, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised.

Reverend John Smith may be familiar to some people. He is the face of God Squad. He was a former bikie who found God and has transformed his life, but he is certainly someone who is also transforming the lives of many other people through his social commitment and his commitment to social justice. He is an individual who could be at an international event with Bono on one hand, yet helping the poor and the dispossessed on the streets of Melbourne on the other. He is a remarkable individual who continues to lead a very rich and full life.

But there is one particular program that I want to refer to that is connected with John Smith. It is a program that transforms the lives of young people. It is called Hand Brake Turn. Hand Brake Turn is a particularly special program and one I have had the honour of witnessing firsthand. It is based in an unobtrusive warehouse deep in the heart of Dandenong. Hand Brake Turn works with young people at a time when they are struggling with their lives and provides them with every possibility of achieving their dreams and fulfilling their potential regardless of their background. Certainly many of the young men and women that I have seen going through this program have had very difficult lives, and the great thing about this program is that it gets to them at a very important transition or tipping point in their lives. I have actually seen this metamorphosis within an eight-week period, but I will speak about that later.

To give you an overview of the program, Hand Brake Turn enrols up to 25 underprivileged young people over an eight-week period. The program gives these young men and women an opportunity to learn basic automotive skills and obtain a TAFE qualification in automotive repairs. The students develop amazing skills in motor mechanics, spray-painting, car detailing and panelbeating. In fact, the highlight of my tour of the Hand Brake Turn workshop was looking at some of the detailing and designs the students had created. Some of the spray-painting on the car doors was absolutely sensational and so was some of the work they did through the automotive component of restoring an old car.

The Hand Brake Turn program offers students a promising future. It basically takes these young men and women and creates a future pathway for them. Most importantly, it does not discriminate. It does not matter where you come from or where you are going in your life. It can literally take you off the street and give you a future. It is also important to note that there is a community component of this Hand Brake Turn program. It gives these young men and women the opportunity to put something back into the community because the course participants over the eight weeks restore a wrecked car and give it to a victim of crime, usually a single parent who has lost their primary form of transport.

On the night of the graduation, which was on 23 May, I was particularly moved, as were many of the students, by the genuine delight and thanks that were displayed by a local single mother of two who had received the wonderful gift of a new car. But that very same car that I am referring to was the car that was in fact the wreck. These young men and women had transformed the car in a period of eight weeks and literally put it back on the road almost like a new car. It was an amazing experience. The transformation that occurred with these young people just in their personality, their attitude, their hope for the future and their actual connection to future employment was just unbelievable.

It was a privilege to be there on 23 May and to have seen the transformation, because I had met with these young men and women eight weeks beforehand, when they were very uncertain about what this program was going to do. I will quickly mention these young men and women—Dmitry Izotov, Jason Jonkers, James Mausii, Dion Torphy, Chrystal Thomas, Jordan Davis, Harley Hanson, Jarrod O’Neill, Robert Palmer, Stewart Brown, George Becerra, Ben Mowart, Mike Perez, Harley McCann, Robert Nicholls and Jason Auty. These young men and women went through a life-transforming experience just to see what they could do in that eight-week period of time. I will be following their future, as I said I would, over the next 13 weeks to watch the career pathways that they will undertake as a consequence of this program. It is a tribute to the work of John Smith. It is a tribute to his belief in young people. It can show what you can do with a program where you literally take young people off the street and transform their lives by giving them hope, belief and direction.

Question agreed to.

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