Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I had the good fortune of meeting with school captains and teams leaders from Copperfield College in my electorate. I also met with Tony Simpson, the principal of that college. That experience was indeed a rich one. The interest and concern that these year 7 to year 12 students showed and expressed to me about all manner of things—including the environment, our involvement in Iraq and local public transport—showed that, if you want to engage fully in civic life in this country, it does not matter what age you are and that you cannot start early enough.

While speaking about educational matters in my own electorate, I also wanted to make a particular reference to Stacey Nguyen, who was a recipient of an Australian Students Prize. Stacey completed her VCE in 2005, obtaining a score of 99.35. Stacey completed her primary school education at Taylors Lakes Primary School and her secondary education at Niddrie Secondary College. All five study scores were over 40. She obtained a study score of 50 for both literature and studio arts, placing her in the top five in the state. In April this year, she received two Premier’s VCE Awards for these subjects at the Melbourne convention centre.

Stacey was involved in many aspects of school life, including debating, participating in school musicals, learning three instruments and being a member of the senior band, contributing to the school yearbook and other publications, having her artwork exhibited at a local gallery and attending leadership forums. I should add that she also had time to be school cocaptain. In June, she was awarded this prize, which was announced by the Minister for Science, Education and Training and which included a $2,000 award and a certificate normally presented by the federal member.

I had the great honour—along with my colleague the shadow minister for foreign affairs, Kevin Rudd, who happened to be visiting my electorate at the time—to present her with that award. I know she was very happy to attend the lunch we held on 19 August at the Taylors Lakes convention centre. She was accompanied by her brother, Michael, and her proud mother, Meni Malkos-Nguyen. I know they enjoyed themselves; they conveyed that to me on the day. I look forward to following her progress at the University of Melbourne, where she is now already a very successful student.