Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

I recently travelled to Geraldton in Western Australia along with my state colleague the member for Geraldton, Lara Dalton, to announce one of the new Connected Beginnings sites at the Bundiyarra Aboriginal Community Aboriginal Corporation. I want to report back to the House on that. Connected Beginnings is a program that connects families to local early childhood education, health programs and health support, as well as to family support services. You could say it's a holistic approach to child wellbeing with wraparound services. It really focuses on those connections between health, education, parenting and family support.

The new sites announced last week when I was in Geraldton are in South Hedland, Canberra, Ngukurr, Mackay, Eagleby, Katherine, Wagga Wagga and Whittlesea. These nine new sites alone will help 3½ thousand First Nations children better prepare for school as the Albanese government continues to work towards Closing the Gap measures in school readiness. In the Geraldton community, it will help provide 460 First Nations children with the best possible start in life in those critical first five years of their development.

While I was in Geraldton to announce these nine new sites—which now bring the Connected Beginnings sites up to 34; we have a target of 50 Connected Beginnings sites by 2025 and we are well on our way to achieving that target—I had the opportunity to meet with some other local community organisations. I met with Chloe Collard, the CEO of the Geraldton Streetwork Aboriginal Corporation, or Streeties as it's locally known. Streeties has been supporting Aboriginal young people and families since the 1980s. In 2021, Streeties was chosen by the McGowan government as a pilot location for Aboriginal family-led decision-making, a process that supports the right to self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and enables their families to make decisions on how to keep their children or their young people safe and connected to family, culture, country and community.

I also got to sit down with our local community organisations doing incredible work in the early childhood education and youth spaces at Ngala at the Geraldton Regional Community Education Centre. We had a lovely discussion about sharing our aspirations for children and young people right across Australia as well as in Geraldton. One of the highlight of the day was visiting the Bambi Child Care Centre, where I got to meet some beautiful children as well as speak to some fantastic staff who are doing some amazing things there.

One of the great memories that I'll take from that day was of a little girl there named Sarah whose parents, the staff informed me, were Egyptian. Many people might not know this, but English was not my first language; the first language I spoke was Arabic. By the time I was six, though, I'd forgotten all my Arabic. My mum tells me that, when I was a kid, the very first words that I uttered were those of an Egyptian song called 'Mama Zamanha Gaya'. Little Sarah was a bit upset, so I picked her up and sang her this song in Arabic. She recognised the song—obviously her parents must sing it to her as well—and it was just such a beautiful moment as I was able to connect with this child through language and culture.

Towards the end of the day I got to meet with headspace Geraldton. Wow! What an amazing organisation they are, let me tell you! The importance of mental health support services for young people, especially in regional areas, is something that I hear about from young people right across Australia, and I know the member opposite will agree with me about the mental health of young people in regional areas. It was fantastic to meet with Fiona, the CEO there, and her staff. We had a really interesting conversation about young people and mental health.

I'd like the thank the various organisations that I met with in Geraldton, particularly the incredible team at Bundiyarra, including the CEO, Wayne McDonald, and the program manager, Sonya Dawson. Also a big thank you to Chloe Collard at Streeties, to Ngala for hosting lunch, to Simone and Kelly from Bambi Child Care Centre and to Fiona and the team at headspace. Lastly, thank you to the member for Geraldton, Lara Dalton MLA, and her incredible staff for making your day available to me and for showing me just how beautiful Geraldton is and how wonderful the community is and what we can do when we all join hands and work together for the betterment of our children.

House adjourned at 20:00

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