Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Wednesday I attended the graduation ceremony for one of the local schools in the electorate of Brand. This was a special invitation for me as it was my old school, Safety Bay Senior High School. I have many fond memories of my school. There were many challenges, many adventures and much fun to be had from year 8 through to year 12. From my leaving year, I would remind any schoolmates that might tune into parliament of our little legend, the great Greta McGoo. It was an absolute honour, 26 years after my own graduation, to be invited to speak to the graduating class of 2016, and as the local federal member of parliament it was particularly unbelievable. It was my first opportunity to do so in this role, and I hope it will not be my last. Safety Bay Senior High helped shape me into the person I am today, and it was there I received a first-class education. It was there I formed lifelong friendships, and I am very thankful that I still see many of the people I met at Safety Bay when I started 30 years ago. Our friendships go on, even though our school days are at an end, sadly, so long ago.

As I stood that evening on the stage in the auditorium of the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre and looked at the confident faces of the school-leavers gathered to celebrate the end of their years at school, I had a number of thoughts. One was how times have changed from my own graduation, which took place one afternoon in the school gym back in 1990. Another was how, even though 26 years have passed, some things stay the same. Decades have passed. The venue certainly had changed, and the uniforms most definitely have. They are now quite different to the brown, fawn and green tree-mimicking uniforms we unhappily endured. I can also admit that I am nearly over the trauma of that uniform, as you can see by the forest-like jacket I accidently wore today. Like the class of 1990, each and every one of the students graduating from Safety Bay High in 2016 was excited and proud to be there with their friends, family, classmates and teachers. It is to the credit of the teaching and support staff at Safety Bay that their hard work and dedication to the young people in their care has turned out the confident and proud graduates that I met with last Wednesday.

Another thing I reflected on whilst there is that the pathway to a university education is still not a well worn one in the community which I represent. It is a situation that has not much changed in the last 26 years, and is a matter that troubles me deeply. While university is not for everyone, it should be equally as accessible to every high-school student living in the cities of Rockingham and Kwinana and throughout the suburbs of Baldivis, Safety Bay, Warnbro, Orelia, Medina, Secret Harbour, Parmelia and the many others in Brand as it is to those living in other places across the state of WA. We should be looking at ways to pull down the barriers which stand in the way of aspiring young people, to afford them the opportunities that might otherwise be denied to them despite their merits, hopes and dreams. I want to wish every student in Brand finishing high school the very best in the future, and I hope they are given every opportunity to make the future the best that they can. Good luck to you all.