Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Back-to-school season is upon us already. To the children in my electorate who have returned to school over the last week: I wish you all the best for the coming year. To the teachers in the schools in my electorate: I wish you too the best for the coming year and, in advance, thank you for your patience, your perseverance and your passion.

While there are plenty of kids all over the country who are excitedly walking out the door with their backpacks overflowing with new stuff and their names carefully plastered on pens, pencils and rulers, there are also a lot of families in our communities for who the expense of the annual book list and stationery requirements is just too great. The sad reality is that there are many kids who start the school year with an empty bag. For those kids, the impact of not having what they need can be enormously detrimental both from a learning perspective and from a social perspective. A wonderful woman in my electorate, Anita Bell, was talking about this with a school friend teacher of hers last year. It dawned on her that, while there were lots of kids going to school with nothing, there were also lots of families who had shelves and cupboards and drawers filled with second-hand stationery—pens, pencils, rulers. So Anita; her husband, Jeff; and 16-year-old son, Ben, decided to do something about it, and they started their own charitable organisation—Give Write. In the space of four months, Give Write has already managed to distribute 600 stationery starter packs to kids across WA with a total of over 80,000 items donated, sorted and—

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