Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you would be well aware, the life of a politician can be tough. There are 226 federal politicians in this building, 800-plus state and territory politicians, and more than 700 local councils with politicians in all forms, some remunerated and some not. In order to further my electorate's understanding of the role of a politician, I am running a competition with my local high schools where I will give the local high school students the chance to spend a day with their federal member of parliament. That is not a consolation prize, Madam Deputy Speaker! I hope I can put on a day that is more exciting than a day of having to listen to the Centrelink issues and the concerns of people who have had inaccurate notices about their debts sent to them. Instead, I will try to organise a fun day for the winner of the competition.

The competition will be available to all the high school students in my electorate. All they will have to do is put together a video of 30 seconds or so indicating why they would like to be an MP for a day. I look forward to sending out information about this competition to the high schools in my electorate in the next few weeks. I am sure that they will have a fun day—I will make sure that they have a fun day. And I am sure that they will support it—not because I am saying that the life of a politician is tough but so that they have a better understanding of how important are democratic traditions are.