John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a young Bathurst student from my electorate, who is participating in the 2014 National Indigenous Youth Parliament, which started last Wednesday and finishes tomorrow. As we all know, this is a leadership program for young Indigenous Australians to learn how government works and how laws are made.

It is not just young Indigenous people who need to learn about how laws are made and about what happens in parliament; young Australians generally need to learn about that. I think that those 30-odd young people who have been involved in this for the last few days—it is going until tomorrow—will be way in front of the average young Australian, who, by and large, has an awful lot to learn about.

More importantly, I believe this is about empowering people to become leaders within the communities and to encourage and motivate their peers. The figures show that less than half eligible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are enrolled to vote. Those of us who have, or have had, rural or remote electorates are all too familiar with that fact. It is quite a small proportion, traditionally, who vote at local, state or federal government elections.

Angel Towney, who is 22 years old, was selected from an outstanding field of over 220 applicants, to take part in this year's National Indigenous Youth Parliament. She is one of only six who were selected from New South Wales. I had the pleasure of meeting Angel in Bathurst recently, and caught up with her again last week while she was in parliament with the other participants in the program. I should say that Towney is a well-known name in the central west. In fact, Angel would have an uncle who was—he may still be—on Dubbo City Council. I am not surprised that Angel was selected from such a competitive field. She most certainly impressed me and demonstrated her incredibly strong community involvement and leadership potential.

I would call Angel a Calare local. She grew up in Parkes and Peak Hill and she now attends Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. At CSU she was studying a double degree—Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science, with a Bachelor of Business Studies. She also formed, and is chair of, the Bathurst campus Indigenous student body which is raising funds to attend the National Indigenous Tertiary Education Student Games in Perth from 21 to 25 September.

I found out that Angel is also a talented athlete, having represented Australia internationally in martial arts—specifically karate and kick boxing—which took her to the USA, Japan, China and Thailand. She is also preparing to undertake a one-year exchange program at the University of St Gallen, in the city of St Gallen in Switzerland, before graduating from CSU at the end of 2015.

As you can see, Angel is far from the average 22-year-old. She is a proud, confident and ambitious Indigenous woman. She is a proud, confident and ambitious woman and is determined to make a change for herself and for her community. Angel convinced me that she is a very firm believer in working to change attitudes in the community on education, health, wellbeing, crime and violence. She is the first in her family to finish high school—the rest dropped out in year 8—and then to go to university. It is a fantastic achievement to be the first in your family to take what, in that situation, is a huge step.

Angel is motivated to take a career path which will enable her to develop communities. She has hinted that this may be in politics; however, she is not too sure yet. A few days in this place may have totally encouraged her to follow this pursuit or totally put her off it. It is just fantastic that Angel is shouldering the responsibility at the age of 22 of being a role model and using the lessons from the Youth Parliament to be a voice for Indigenous people and for her community. Through the Youth Parliament, Angel has learnt from the experts about the parliamentary process and democracy. Along with her fellow youth parliamentarians, she has participated in a debate on a bill on Indigenous studies with the object of seeing the inclusion of Indigenous cultures and histories as a mandatory part of primary school curriculums Australia-wide. But I think what she has valued most is meeting other young Australians from across the country, building her skills and confidence as a strong advocate for her community.

At the lunch last week with Angel I had the opportunity to meet some of the other participants from New South Wales, particularly those from Wollongong and Broken Hill. I think we and the Indigenous people in New South Wales and Australia are going to be very well served by the people I met last week. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the true aim of the Youth Parliament is to develop young latest willing to advocate for their community and willing to do so beyond what you might say was the call of duty. I wish all the participants in the 2014 National Indigenous Youth Parliament all the very best for their future endeavours. I am confident that Angel will be an incredibly strong representative for our area and do us all proud—and when I say that I do not mean just a strong representative that Indigenous people should be proud of. Everybody in the electorate of Calare can know that this girl will represent all of us to the very best of her ability and make all of us very proud of her.