Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Welcome back, Member for Dunkley! On 5 December last year I had the honour to acknowledge 46 outstanding young students at the 2011 Holt Community Spirit and Leadership Awards Ceremony. The Holt Community Spirit and Leadership Awards have been held for 10 years. I created them because I wanted to bring our community together to tell the great stories of our young people and to celebrate the fact that our community is a great place to live, to work and to raise a family.

Award winners are nominated by their school and receive a framed certificate and gift voucher. On the evening of 5 December I was able to acknowledge the students for their contribution and the hard work and dedication they have shown in their schools and our local community. The testimonials from the schools are absolutely outstanding. I want to read their names into the parliamentary record. There are 46 of them: Jessica Bowler, Cameron Hawkins, Samantha Chapman, Duygu Ozturk, Zoja Kovacs, Amber O'Donnell, Melissa Vorster, Mitchell Caddaye, Jason Henshall, Javiera Lizana-Rivas, Jacinta Watts, Adam Keating, Tiara Fernandez, Andrew Leime, Slone Sudiro, Skye Thompson, Shani Jones, Puoch Puoch, Ben Hill, Natasha Rallis, Damon Weeks, Charlotte Capper, Dalina Nath, Mitchell Hunt, Ashleigh McDonnell, Kelly Lenehan, James Cole-Sinclair, Shaylah Portelli-Moore, Jasmine Sadler, Abbey Smith, Lauren Alley, Katie Hopcraft, Sarah Castricum, Dilushi Premathlaka, Brandon Knowles, Tiger Chatzis, Lydia Paull, Eid Yusofi, Shohana Akbar, James Toskov, Tony Yalda, Damien Ruttun, Kyle Fernandes, Brittany Hay, Cayne Tagliaferro, Helani Jayawardhana and Caitlin Bibby. That is a long list of names. One of the incredible things when, as a member of parliament, you are presenting awards of this type is listening to the stories of our young people. One of the young people who was mentioned in these awards raised $3,000 and shaved his head in order to raise money to provide treatment for women with leukaemia. There are so many incidents and so many stories of young people making an active contribution to their community.

Down our way, if something bad happens in our community it appears on the front page of the papers, be it speeding or other sorts of things that occur. But when great stories about people, such as the 46 people whose names I have read out, and their contribution to the community are put forward they are very rarely reported in the national or broader local media. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, good news that enhances a community is hard to get up, but I will continue to do so until people understand what a great bunch of kids we have in our area.