Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Monmia Primary School in my electorate recently visited Parliament House. Unfortunately, it was a non-sitting week and I wasn't able to receive them. But I did take the opportunity to go and visit the school when they came back from Canberra. I want to thank the very dedicated team, led by Principal Lorraine Bell and year 5 teacher Tan Ly, who have a great bunch of kids. I was welcomed with a very robust and challenging debate. These are young grade 5 children who are very bright, and they probed me quite a bit about my role as a federal member of parliament. This very engaged group of young people asked me about the proposed changes at that time to the Australia Day holiday. I asked them in return what their view was and, needless to say, they weren't very happy about it. So I gave them a challenge. I said to them, 'If you do a survey in the school and come back to with me with a report, I will present it to parliament.' Of the 126 grade 5 students surveyed, 81.7 per cent said the date of Australia Day should stay; 72.2 per cent of the students celebrate Australia Day, with 69.8 per cent saying they spent the public holiday with their family; 7.9 per cent go to the beach; 4.8 per cent of the students enjoy a family barbecue; and a huge 75.4 per cent of the students felt Australia Day was very special to them, and they saw no need for it to change.