Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A petition to this place offers all Australians the opportunity to directly engage with their parliament. As deputy chair of the House Standing Committee on Petitions I have the opportunity to see this process in action firsthand. Australians from coast to coast, passionate about their issue and who genuinely seek change for the better, use this mechanism to its full advantage to lobby for change to legislation or simply highlight disadvantage or injustice where they see it in their local community.

It was my great pleasure to host in Tangney the first Western Australian public hearings of the petitions committee. Liberal, Labor and Nationals members placed politics on hold to investigate issues including asylum seekers, health care, conservation, the Australian Constitution and aircraft noise. The passion and commitment of petitioners was clear to see. The addition of this public hearing to their tabled petition added great personal impact to the issues we discussed. Most importantly, we engaged with a great cross-section of the community, including younger Australians.

Our second day of hearing saw us travel to Santa Maria College in Attadale, south of Perth, to discuss asylum seekers with years 11 and 12 politics students. This engagement with younger Western Australians highlighted a discussion of the current asylum seeker debate free of partisan political discourse and with a level of independent thought and healthy scepticism of the way our parliament and the media have chosen to frame the debate. I commend principal petitioner Ashleigh Small and Kelly Hall for their informed and enlightened presentations.

I also offer commendation to their teacher, Sharni Andrews, and to all the students of the politics class for their careful preparation of their petition and hearing materials. Their reasoned discussion of this very sensitive and important issue energised all members of parliament present at the hearing to return to Canberra with a greater resolve to find a solution to an issue troubles many Australians.

Public hearings of the petitions committee are vital to the transfer of local knowledge to our federal parliament. I thank the members for Reid, Gippsland, Holt and Deakin for joining me in Tangney. I also thank the secretariat for their preparation and execution of the successful hearings. Most importantly, I thank those Western Australians that made the presentations to the hearings. Their petitions are presented before this place for us all to take note.