Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Bella Gilbertson is a young lady who lives in Gerringong and delivered what I considered to be a very impressive speech to the Gerringong Lions Club. She attends Kiama High School, and I would like to share her words with you:

I want to live in a peaceful world. I want to hear about our leaders agreeing, on the news. I want to see something being done about global warming, rather than just being a topic which will just get talked about and occasionally act as a form of leverage or accusation.

Barack Obama, President of the United States, once stated that change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for; we are the change that we seek.

The world has recently adopted this position of being in the process of alteration. Whether this is just a facade or for real is yet to be revealed.

Personally, being an optimist, I believe that the next few years will unleash a somewhat dramatic difference to what the world has been subject to throughout the past decade. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. Maybe all the promises that we’ve been fed throughout those in power are meaningless words, a broken vow just to get to a high place of authority.

Yet, why do we need our world leaders, prime ministers and presidents alike, to create the pathway which we will obediently follow? Why don’t we create our own pathways, off the track, leading to where we believe the right decision lies.

As a seventeen year old, lucky enough to be a school captain I’ve met many strong and promising peers, and through these experiences I really do believe the key to the door of change rests within the children of today, the leaders of tomorrow. We, as the youth are provided with opportunities to become what we want; what we are willing to work for and where our skills and capabilities lie. Is this an opportunity wasted?

Here I am thinking that I really don’t really take much time to appreciate that I’m provided with: an opportunity to make a difference. I’m able to question my place and what society asks of me. Able to present my views on what’s right and wrong and hope people listen. And I’m able to dream of that peaceful society.

It is a rarity for us to stop and think we are actually provided with an opportunity to create change. We can consider problems like greenhouse gas emissions, a form of polite conversation; something where we can meet most people halfway in. But world issues will only ever be talking points unless we do something to abolish them. Not in front of the cameras, not to gain points in a political hierarchy but genuinely to make the world a better place.

So why aren’t we actually doing something about it? Rather than just waiting on someone else to do the work? Even now I can talk about the combustion of fossil fuels or why I believe regardless of whether it’s an actual issue or a false theory, we should still treat the environment with respect.

I can fool myself into saying that I am creating change. By raising awareness I’m causing others to think and talk, which will lead to these people being ‘aware’.

They will then let others know, who will then tell other people. Leaving us ultimately in an aware world … where we can talk about things?

Speaking is all well and good. But let’s make the next move. For a journey of a thousand miles really does begin with that single step.

An example of this journey whether it actually be a thousand miles or lets say one and a half kilometres can be taken from Glenn Cunningham. The 12 year old boy that was told by doctors that he would never walk again due to being the unlucky recipient of major burns.

Twenty years later, this boy grown into a man runs the 1500 metre in the Olympics, and wins silver. Not the special Olympics, the actual Olympics. So whether we are working to change ourselves, the environment or the world. There is nothing stopping us from taking that one step

So I will.

(Time expired)

See this speech in context