Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge the 756 student leaders at schools across the northern Gold Coast, and to commend them for stepping up to their leadership journey and seeking to play a leadership role in their communities, their schools, and also their homes. The northern Gold Coast has a superb group of schools; they are growing all the time, as the land between the Coomera River and the Logan River becomes the fastest-growing area in Australia once again. New schools continue to be developed over the years. I have spoken with many of the students at so many of our schools. I have commended them on their leadership journey, encouraged them to grasp the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to enjoy the time they are having on that leadership journey. So it is a pleasure today to seek to table a list of the names of those students—to commend them for their leadership journey, to encourage them to step up and to be all they can be, to set the right example and to embrace the opportunity that they have been given. I look forward to following their leadership journey with great interest. Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to table the 756 names of our student leaders.

Leave granted.

It is also a great pleasure to speak in the adjournment debate in the House this afternoon to commend the work that Livingstone Christian College is doing in the northern Gold Coast. The new principal, Mark Laraghy, has a vision of Livingstone Christian College not only being all they can be in their community but also being a school that is strong in leadership, strong in values, strong in their Christian ethos, and with a very strong focus on the Asian century. Accordingly, I have been working with the principal on the opportunity to bring a number of their year 10 leaders to Canberra to get a grasp of what it means to lead in the Asian century.

My understanding is the principal is now seeking expressions of interest from the leaders at Livingstone Christian College to come to Canberra for three days, which coincides with the budget period. This morning, I sent a quick note through to the principal of Livingstone Christian College to say I look forward to working with and hosting his group of leaders from his community when they come here to Canberra.

I have suggested a range of things that we can do with those students to enhance and to encourage their leadership journey. We can take them to question time. They can see the nation's leaders in full battle, a battle of ideas but battle nonetheless. I will look forward to hosting them in the private dining room and, of course, ensuring they have a tour of new Parliament House. I would encourage them to visit Old Parliament House and see where our history came from in terms of democracy. I will grab one of my ministerial colleagues to sit down with them and talk through national leadership. I will seek to get one of our junior ADF officers to talk about what is required in very junior leadership, in small team leadership, and where leadership begins. I will encourage them to tour the Australian War Memorial to get a feel of the cost of leadership, the burden of leadership, where over 101,000 Australians' names are recorded, most of them buried overseas, fighting for a freedom we enjoy. I will encourage them to lay a wreath at the Last Post ceremony as the doors are closed at the War Memorial. I will encourage them to get involved in discussing where Asia is going with some of our universities and getting a feel for what role we will play. I will be encouraging the school to sit down with one of our Asian ambassadors to get a feel for how Asia sees Australia and how we can play a constructive role in our region that we are part of. I would be encouraging them to visit something like the Australian Defence Force Academy, that elite institution where we train our nation's finest military leaders. I will be encouraging the school and these students to get along to the Institute of Sport because so much of what we learn in young leadership we learn on the sports field. Courage does not begin on the battlefield; it begins with grabbing a rugby ball—I was going to say a netball, but so many of our fine women are now out there on the rugby field or the AFL field—and charging towards an opposition that wants to tear your head off. That is where courage begins: the battlefield simply refines it.

There is an enormous opportunity for our young leaders, and I am looking forward to working with the principal and meeting these fine students that the school will choose. I am sure they will have a tremendous time here, and I think there is an opportunity here to top the whole visit off on the Thursday and get the students along to the address-in-reply. They will see a significant milestone as an opposition leader expresses their view for the nation, and it will round the entire trip off.