Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Colleagues, I would like to introduce you to some of the members of Benalla P-12 College in the gallery. Thank you and welcome. I've had the delightful experience today of having lunch with Alex, Cameron, Sam, Jess and her dad, Wayne, and year 12 coordinator, James. Over lunch, we talked about leadership, we talked about loyalty and we talked about courage. We talked about walking the Kokoda Track, managing whole-school assemblies and representing students on school councils.

Right across my electorate, young people are taking leadership roles. I am so delighted to be able to call them out and say thank you. Wodonga Senior Secondary College, Borinya Wangaratta Community Partnership, Galen Catholic College in Wangaratta and Beechworth Secondary College are all coming up to visit me during this fortnight. A special call-out to Edi Upper Primary School. Every single one of the students came and visited me last week, and all of them were farmers. I was so proud.

I call out to the young people: you are the future. We care about you and what you have to say. We want to hear from you. Have your say. Be active. Be courageous. Come and meet your members of parliament. I say to the young people in the audience: take really good lessons about being courageous, speaking your truth as you know you should, working with your teachers, working with me and working with your senators. But my real message today is: if you haven't enrolled to vote, do it. There might be an election in the air real soon.

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